tfm-tui

tfm v1.1.0 🎉

New stable release, version 1.1.0.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/clarkarch/tfm-tui/main/install.sh | bash

New stuff

• tfm update → checks GitHub for the newest release, shows what it found, asks before changing anything (--tag pins, --force reinstalls)
• Update notices → off by default, one cached check a day; About row checks on demand
• Command palette → ctrl+p searches and runs any action, and every action is a remappable keybind
• Archive browsing → open a tar/tar.gz/zip/7z (even a read-only rar) as a folder you can walk and preview
• USB eject → unmounts every partition on the disk, then powers it off, with an honest safe-to-unplug message
• Hotplug → plug/unplug detected live via lsblk polling, no restart
• Default file manager → opt-in first-boot prompt + advanced row, desktop icon and DBus FileManager1 wired
• Smooth scrolling → grid keyboard jumps and the wheel glide instead of stepping a cell
• Lazy startup → opt-in, defers boot work past the first paint ([ui] lazy-startup)
• New scrim → modal backdrop fill/dim/none with a dim-strength knob, icons shaded instead of translucent
• Animation grammar → sidebar/topbar/directory-bar/files intros share one set of knobs, plus hover nudges
• Kitty DnD → self-drop answers the offer, and dragging across machines is implemented (thanks @jmote)
• System ffmpeg → video thumbnails use your own ffmpeg now, the bundled sidecar is gone (install.sh probes for it)
• Preview gutter → line numbers run to the bottom of the code viewport

Faster

• Lazy boot → skips the boot pixel wait and the default-manager probe off the hot path
• Bun subprocesses → node:child_process gone, spawns ~2× faster (node:fs stays, it won the bench)
• Painted by id → settings/menus repaint in place instead of rebuilding native nodes
• Wheel drain → glides within its budget instead of a fixed beat

Stability

• No orphans → closing the terminal (SIGHUP/SIGTERM) reaps tfm instead of leaving it running (thanks @skiv4)
• Arrow keys → no longer double-scroll the grid
• Archive URIs → no longer path-resolved in the path bar or labels
• 0.6.0 gaps → rename no-op, toolbar reseed, and a quit hang fixed
• Clean installs → debug declared directly (usocket's transitive dep broke frozen installs)

tfm v1.0.0 🎉

First stable release, version 1.0.0.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/clarkarch/tfm-tui/main/install.sh | bash

Performance

• Icons rasterize 13–23× faster → in-process resvg (~0.4ms vs ~7ms CLI spawn, ~60× vs rsvg-convert), CLI fallbacks dropped
• Thumbnails without spawns → Bun.Image in-process, ICO/TIFF/HEIC decoded in-process too
• Theme switches stay warm → raster caches carry over, no full re-render

New since beta

• Video thumbnails → bundled static ffmpeg sidecar, no system ffmpeg needed
• System theme → derives from your terminal's own colors via OSC query
• Transparent-bg force → terminal background shows through regardless of preset
• Outline icons → icon-style toggle with a full outline set
• Settings upgrade → dependent rows hide behind master toggles, needs-restart badges, keybind conflicts offer an inline swap, yazi preset, more remappable nav
• New default keys → F3 preview, ctrl+` terminal, alt+up/alt+home (all remappable)
• Run prompt → executables launch from an in-app prompt instead of xdg-open
• Open in New Pane → context-menu rows open into the other pane
• F1 help → scrollable cheat sheet with live shortcuts
• Pointer shapes → context pointer across the UI (text over inputs, grabs on drag)
• Brand + About → tfm logo, about view with links and credits
• Archives without tools → in-process tar/tar.gz/zip fallback, live progress for zip/7z
• TTY support → gpm mouse on the Linux console, 16-color theme, force-glyph mode for buggy graphics
• Installer rebuild → guided steps, source-build path (source.sh), terminal-file-manager second command, sidebar section titles
• Sudo escalation → read/open/rename/copy/delete privileged files with one password gate

Stability

• Quit refuses while file ops are in flight, no more stranded files with no undo
• Plugin veto now covers extract + compress, not just copy/move/trash
• Archive extraction is staged + contained, ../ escapes land in trash, recoverable
• Bulk rename re-checks targets at apply time, never silently overwrites
• Per-mount trash no longer falls back to home trash on missing sidecars
• Undo journal trash steps are idempotent, no more FAILED on already-gone targets
• Folder totals count link-own sizes with shared inodes deduped
• Copy landings are race-protected; undo identity uses birth time (ext4 reuses inodes)
• Spawn paths hardened, missing binaries and wedged children degrade instead of hanging

tfm v0.1.0-beta.0 🥳

New stuff

• Dual pane → two file panes, own top bar + tabs each
• Tab → switch focused pane · F5/F6 → copy/move to other pane
• ctrl+shift+d → toggle dual pane (second pane follows your cwd)
• Network locations → sftp/smb/WebDAV/FTP via gvfs
• ctrl+shift+s → connect to server, credentials prompted in-app
• Extract Here → staged, conflict prompt, undoable
• Compress to… → picker, 13 formats (tar.gz/zip/7z/tar/xz/bz2/zst/lzma/lz4/br/lz/lzo/Z)
• Bulk rename → F2 on multi-select, one stem + numbering, live preview
• ctrl+d → duplicate next to source, even across directories
• Recursive search → opt-in, walks subtrees (fd or built-in)
• Delete progress → trash-empty/delete-forever with bar + cancel
• ctrl+alt+r → restart without breaking the terminal
• Plugins → TS files, hot reload, menus, previews, events, veto hooks, UI slots
• tfm plugins → search/add/remove/update/new from CLI or esc → Plugins
• Open ▸ flyout + Open With… → gio handler picker
• Auto-hide panes → sidebar/preview/terminal slide back on mouse-near
• File animations → fade/slide/stagger + easing/dir knobs (off by default)
• Sidebar/topbar boot intros → fade/slide/stagger per item
• Directory-bar animation → new crumbs cascade on navigate
• Hover nudges → tiles + sidebar rows lift one cell
• outline / outline-partial → border chrome styles
• Transparent icons → opaque/transparent/transparent-partial
• Leveled toasts → info/success/error, status bar is selection-only now
• Remappable keys 17 → 35 → history, props, new file/folder, path edit, preview, terminal, view, zoom, pane + server actions
• TFM_CONFIG → override config path · --debug → log file
• tfm [PATH] → file path selects it on launch
• Website → landing page yey
• Plugin docs → docs/plugins.md + samples

Faster

• Windowed grid → renders visible rows only while scrolling
• Listings cache → repaints skip the disk, stats cached for sorts
• Shared collator → big-folder sorts stop rebuilding locale data
• Visible-first thumbs → on-screen rasterizes before backlog
• LRU icon rasters → capped memory
• Counting pre-scan toast → big/slow transfers show progress early

Safer

• No self-copy → folder-into-itself refused
• Anchored temp sweeps → no more deleting real .tfm-part* names
• Failed rm keeps copy → partial cross-device cleanup fixed
• Stash-fail aborts → never overwrites without undo
• Rename-undo restores → no silent clobber
• Durable copies → tmp → fsync → atomic rename
• Serial op queue → trash/transfer/restore can't interleave
• Undo journal → opt-in, survives restarts (7-day expiry)
• spawnSafe → missing binary can't kill the TUI

First beta. Usable daily, but back up anything irreplaceable first.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/clarkarch/tfm-tui/main/install.sh | bash

Ive been making this project solo so if you found any issue i haven't encountered or just have feature requests, feel free to open an issue

New alpha test build. :partying_face:

New in this build

• Tabs. You can now open several folders side by side. Each tab keeps its own history. Ctrl+T opens a tab, Ctrl+W closes it, and Ctrl+Tab switches between them. You can also drag a folder onto a tab, and it opens there.

• List view. The file view can now be a list instead of a grid. Each row shows the icon, name, size, and date. You can switch between grid and list at any time. Images and videos show thumbnails in both views.

• Video support. Video files now show a thumbnail and a preview picture. This needs ffmpeg on your system. Without it, videos show a plain icon.

• Settings/Config Overhaul. There is a real settings screen now. Press Esc and choose Settings. You can change the theme, the view, and other options there EASILY. The keyboard shortcuts can also be remapped, in the settings screen or in the config file at ~/.config/tfm/config.toml.

• Terminal pane. You can drop files onto the embedded terminal to paste their paths. And some terminal UX fixes.

• Word wrap. Long file names can wrap onto a second line instead of being cut off (on grid). This is off by default. You can turn it on in the settings or with word-wrap = true in the config file.

Fixes

• Menus and dialogs can no longer get stuck on top of each other.
• Copying or moving files to another disk now shows a progress bar instead of sitting silent.
• SVG thumbnails are faster and sharper.
• Long sessions no longer slowly run out of memory.
• MASSIVE index.ts rewrite. 5200 lines -> 1100 💀

Install (curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/clarkarch/tfm-tui/main/install.sh | bash) — or grab the .gz for your arch and gunzip into ~/.local/bin.

Vibecoded alpha — expect rough edges. Don't test on files you can't afford to lose.