I’ve used graphical file managers my whole life, and chances are, so have you. They’re in just about every OS you can use, work well enough, and the graphical interface means anyone can use them without feeling overwhelmed, no matter how big a directory they’re opening.

But they’re not the only file managers around, and they’re certainly not the best or the fastest. Single developers have been known to create a file manager better than Google’s, and the terminal remains one of the fastest ways to get around your computer. With this Rust-based terminal app, your terminal just became the fastest and perhaps the easiest way to browse your files.

The file manager that lives entirely in your terminal

What Yazi is and why it’s replacing graphical file browsers for power users

Yazi is a TUI (text-based user interface) file manager built around a fully asynchronous I/O model. Every single operation, from listing directories to generating previews, copying files, and more, runs on background threads. This means the UI has the next page prepared before you even open it. It never freezes, never stutters, and never makes you wait.

Yazi solves one of the most fundamental problems with older terminal file managers like Ranger. They’re synchronous, meaning the whole interface locks up while it’s waiting on a particularly large directory to load or a preview to render. Open a folder with a thousand high-quality images in a standard terminal file manager and watch it crawl. Open the same in Yazi, and you’ll barely notice. Directories load progressively, previews generate in the background, and everything just keeps moving.

Installation is as simple as typing out a single command in most advanced Linux distros. However, if you’re on something simpler like Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you’ll have to download and extract the build files manually as follows:

wget -qO yazi.zip https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/releases/latest/download/yazi-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.zip 
unzip -q yazi.zip -d yazi-temp 
sudo mv yazi-temp/*/{ya,yazi} /usr/local/bin 
rm -rf yazi-temp yazi.zip 
yazi --version 

You can use Flatpak to install Yazi as well. However, it’s not recommended as it introduces a ton of limitations due to Flatpak’s sandboxing nature interfering with the file manager’s functionality.

OS

Windows, Linux, macOS

Developer

sxyazi

Price model

Free, Open-source

Yazi is a fast, open-source terminal file manager written in Rust that combines a three-pane interface, Vim-style navigation, and extensible plugins for efficient keyboard-driven file management.

Three panes, zero wasted movement

The layout that makes navigating folders feel surprisingly fast and intuitive

The tool uses a Miller column layout, which has three panes side by side. The left pane shows your parent directory, the center shows your current directory, and the right pane is a preview of whatever file or directory you’ve got highlighted in the middle. It’s a similar implementation to Ranger, but Yazi takes it much further.

The preview pane is perhaps the most impressive part. You can peek into just about any file, whether it’s a Python script, a PDF file, an image, a video, or even a CAD file. This feature does require your terminal to support the Kitty graphics protocol or Sixel, but it works like a charm. Of course, not every file can be translated into an image preview, in which case you see the actual data the file is made of.

You can even scroll through the previews using the Shift + J and Shift + K keyboard shortcuts without ever opening a file. This alone has replaced a ridiculous number of cat commands in my daily workflow.

Vim shortcuts become second nature

Keyboard-driven navigation keeps your hands off the mouse and your workflow uninterrupted

If you’re already a fan of Vim or Newvim, Yazi will feel extremely natural to use. Navigation uses the same h, j, k, l keys as the legendary text editor. The Linux terminal is no stranger to commands that save you time, and Yazi is no different. You can enter directories with l and go back with h. Pressing gg takes you to the top of the list, G to the bottom. Visual mode also works exactly like you’d expect: press v, move the cursor, and everything in between gets selected.

File operations also follow the same Vim-inspired logic. You can press y to yank (copy), x to cut, p to paste, d to trash, and D to permanently delete a file. Once you build this muscle memory, navigating your file system becomes extremely fast, and the file manager actually keeps up with you.

And in case you don’t use Vim or don’t want to develop muscle memory for extremely specific keyboard commands and actions, you can just use the arrow keys to strut about your filesystem as you desire. Up and down to scroll, left to go back, and right to enter a directory. It’s as simple as navigating a file tree in the terminal can get, and it supports the mouse, too.

Finding files feels almost instant

Fuzzy search, quick jumps, and navigation tools that make huge directories manageable

Yazi also integrates with fzf, fd, and ripgrep, which results in a search experience that puts most graphical file managers to shame. You can press s to search files by name using fd, press S to search file contents using ripgrep, press z for fuzzy-find via fzf, and press Z to jump to any directory you’ve previously visited using zoxide.

If you’re already using zoxide, Yazi updates the zoxide database as you navigate, so your most-visited directories stay at the top of the jump list. The result is a workflow where you can teleport to just about any corner of your file system, and especially your most used directories, in barely a couple of keystrokes.

Small features, massive flexibility

Plugins, themes, previews, and customization let Yazi adapt to almost any workflow

Yazi ships with a built-in package manager called ya, and there’s a thriving community plugin ecosystem as well. You can find useful plugins like Git, which shows modified, staged, untracked, and ignored file statuses inline in the file listing, a lazygit plugin that launches a full Git UI from inside Yazi, a chmod plugin for managing file systems visually, a Markdown plugin that renders readme files in the preview pane, and much more.

Configuration and customization are also rather approachable. Yazi supports flavors — pre-made color schemes you can install and switch between for theming. Apart from that, configuration lives in three TOML files inside ~/.config/yazi/. These include:

• yazi.toml: For managing core settings
• keymap.toml: For changing keybinds
• theme.toml: For managing themes and colors.

The visual result from even a simple action, such as applying a pre-made theme, feels quite polished. The result is a much better user experience than any terminal file manager will give you.

I stopped reaching for the mouse

Yazi became my default file manager even when a GUI is only one click away

If you feel like the endless barrage of double clicks in a graphical file manager is slowing you down, Yazi will remove just about every reason you have for reaching out to one. Whether you’re previewing files, batch renaming them, or just browsing through to figure out how to clean your drive, Yazi’s got you covered.

And that’s really the point. Yazi doesn’t try to dazzle you with gimmicks or novel features. It aims to quietly slide into your existing terminal workflow and make everything smoother. It respects the muscle memory a Linux veteran might have, and allows flexibility for beginners alike. And at this point, I’m not sure I want to go back to graphical file managers, at least on Linux.