Yazi is a terminal file manager written in Rust on non-blocking async I/O, aimed at developers and command-line users who want fast, customizable file browsing without leaving the terminal.

What it is

Yazi ("duck") is a terminal file manager written in Rust and built on non-blocking, asynchronous I/O. It lives in the Rust and command-line tooling ecosystem and runs cross-platform on Linux, macOS, and Windows, as reflected in its topics and documentation. Rather than a graphical file explorer or a plain shell session, it provides a full terminal-native file management environment: multi-tab browsing, cross-directory selection, scrollable previews of videos, PDFs, archives, code, and directories, bulk rename and create, visual mode, archive extraction, a file chooser, trash bin, custom layouts, mouse support, and drag and drop. The interface follows Vim conventions through its input, pick, confirm, which, and notify components, with auto-completion for cd paths.

The concrete problem it solves is the cost of doing file work inside a terminal. Shell commands such as directory traversal, previewing, renaming in bulk, and moving files between directories are slow, repetitive, and serial by nature. Yazi addresses that by making every I/O operation asynchronous, spreading CPU tasks across multiple threads, and running an async task scheduler that reports real-time progress, allows cancellation, and assigns internal priorities. It also carries a virtual filesystem for remote file management and custom VFS providers, plus a data distribution service built on a client-server architecture that requires no additional server process. The registry facts name no specific product that Yazi replaces.

Key capabilities

• Full asynchronous I/O with CPU tasks distributed across multiple threads, so transfers and previews do not block the interface.
• Async task scheduling and management with real-time progress updates, task cancellation, and internal task priority assignment.
• Built-in image preview through multiple protocols: Kitty unicode placeholders, iTerm2 inline images, Sixel graphics, and Konsole's Kitty old protocol, with integration for Überzug++ and Chafa to cover nearly all terminals.
• Built-in code highlighting and image decoding combined with a pre-loading mechanism to speed up loading of images and normal files.
• Concurrent plugin system written in Lua, covering UI plugins that rewrite most of the UI, functional plugins, and custom previewer, preloader, spotter, and fetcher components.
• Virtual filesystem supporting remote file management, custom VFS providers, and custom search engines.
• Package manager that installs plugins and themes with one command, keeps them up to date, and can pin them to a specific version.

Further integrations include ripgrep, fd, fzf, and zoxide, a theme system, and terminal features such as CSI u, OSC 52, and CSI 2031, along with git and mount manager plugins.

Who uses it and how

• Developers working daily in a terminal who treat Yazi as their primary file manager, since the project documents itself as a public beta that can be used as a daily driver.
• Vim and Neovim users, who get familiar input, pick, confirm, which, and notify components and cd path auto-completion.
• Users who pair it with ripgrep, fd, fzf, and zoxide for search and navigation workflows inside the same terminal session.
• Cross-platform users on Linux, macOS, or Windows, including Windows Terminal v1.22.10352.0 and above for Sixel image preview and kitty, iTerm2, WezTerm, Konsole, foot, Ghostty, st with the Sixel patch, and Warp on macOS and Linux for built-in image protocols.
• People who manage remote files, since the virtual filesystem supports custom VFS providers and custom search engines.

Getting started

Installation is documented at https://yazi-rs.github.io/docs/installation, and feature documentation lives at https://yazi-rs.github.io/features. Plugins and themes are added afterwards through the built-in package manager, which keeps them updated or pins them to a specific version.

How it compares

The provided facts list no paid or commercial products that Yazi replaces, so no licence, hosting, data-ownership, or cost-model contrast can be drawn. The facts also name no other terminal file manager. On the evidence available, it stands alone in this registry.

When to use it — and when not to

Yazi is a strong fit for users who want an async terminal file manager, accept Lua-based configuration, and are comfortable tracking a fast-moving project; the licence is MIT and the repository is active, with a last push in September 2026 and 42,278 stars. Anyone who needs stability should weigh the project status carefully: it is a public beta in heavy development, and breaking changes are expected. The facts describe no external service dependencies such as a database, object storage, or SMTP, so the operational burden is limited to installing the binary and managing Lua plugins and themes.