Why I recommend these 5 Linux file managers over GUI – and they’re all free

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Sometimes, in Linux, you just need the terminal.
• You can even manage files within the terminal.
• These five apps are free and easy to use.

Sometimes, a GUI just won't do. 

For example, I might be logged into a remote Linux server, and I need an easier way to manage files than the usual commands. Or, I might already be in a terminal window on a local machine and figure I might as well stay there.

Or, maybe I just prefer the command line.

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to adopt a terminal-based file manager on Linux. No, they aren't as convenient as a GUI, but when they are necessary, they are great to have around.

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But which ones should you consider? When you dive down that rabbit hole, you'll find there are plenty. For me, however, only a handful bubble to the top, and here they are.

1. Midnight Commander

Midnight Commander has been around for a long time. In fact, this file manager was there when I first started using Linux. Midnight Command (otherwise known as MC) is the most well-known terminal-based file manager for Linux and is about as close as you'll get to using a terminal-based file manager under the guise of a GUI.

MC is powerful. In fact, it's just as powerful as a GUI file manager, and even includes mouse integration, which means you can open menus and navigate through directories with a click of the mouse. The one thing you can't do with the mouse is open files. However, MC does include built-in support for your text editor of choice (such as nano).

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MC includes features such as dual-pane viewing, basic file operations (such as copy, move, rename, and delete), batch renaming, FTP support, customizations, unicode support, remote access (via SSH), and more. 

You can install MC from your distribution's standard repositories with commands like:

• Ubuntu/Debian-based distributions – sudo apt-get install mc -y.
• Fedora-based distributions – sudo dnf install mc -y.
• Arch-based distributions – sudo pacman -S mc.

2. Yazi

I kind of prefer Yazi to MC, mostly because it honors system themes and doesn't bog me down with too many features. Yazi is written in Rust, which makes it blazingly fast (especially when running on a desktop that is also written in Rust, such as COSMIC).  

One of the best features of Yazi is that it includes image preview support. The only caveat to the image preview support is that it's only supported in specific terminals, such as Ghostty, iTerm2, Konsole, Tabby, Bobcat, and a few others. If you use a different terminal, it'll fall back to either the X11 or Wayland protocol, and the image previews will be pixellated and useless.

Yazi also includes built-in code highlighting, image decoding, and a plug-in system to extend the feature set.

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Yazi can be installed with Flatpak using the command:

flatpak install yazi

4. Ranger Console File Manager

Ranger has a Vim-like interface and uses a three-column design, which is great for navigating directories and viewing files. Ranger can preview text files, images, PDFs, and videos.

OK, the video preview is a bit misleading, as what Ranger actually does is open a video view (w3m). The same thing holds true for image previews. What this means is that if you're connected to a remote machine, you won't be able to view those files. 

Like most terminal-based file managers, you navigate the directories using your keyboard arrow keys. When you land on a text file, Ranger automatically opens a third column for preview. Hit Enter on your keyboard, and Ranger will open the file in your default text editor.

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Ranger can be installed with one of the following commands:

• Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions – sudo apt-get install ranger -y
• Fedora-base distributions – sudo dnf install ranger -y
• Arch-based distribution – sudo pacman -S ranger

5. Nnn

If you're a minimalist, you'll love Nnn because it's about as minimal as you can get. When you open the file manager, you get a single-column listing of the current working directory. That minimalism means you only have to use your keyboard's arrow keys to interact with the file manager and then open a file with the Enter key. Nnn has little in the way of bells and whistles, but it serves the purpose quite well. You can also copy or move files by selecting them (using the space bar) and then use the p key to copy and v key to move them. 

If you're unsure of how to interact with Nnn, just hit the ? key on your keyboard to bring up the help file, where you'll find Nnn actually does offer plenty of other features, such as filters, file stats, rename, archive, bookmarks, and more.

Another nice thing about Nnn is that it's fast. 

You can install Nnn from the standard repositories with commands like:

• Ubuntu/Debian-based distributions – sudo apt-get install nnn -y
• Fedora-based distributions – sudo dnf install nnn -y
• Arch-based distributions – sudo pacman -S nnn