A command-line file manager
You most likely use a file manager daily to do a variety of tasks from navigating the filesystem to creating, deleting, moving, and copying files. File managers come in many shapes and sizes, from command-line-only tools to the many Norton Commander clones (e.g., Midnight Commander) to graphical tools such as Dolphin (KDE), Nautilus (Gnome), Thunar (Xfce), or PCManFM (LXDE). In particular, if you have ever had to work with Windows Explorer, you will probably appreciate a good file manager.
Amongst the plethora of file managers, broot (pronounced "be root") clearly stands out from the competition in terms of functionality. Broot, an interactive file manager for the command line written in Rust, offers an innovative concept. It replaces commands such as ls and tree with an interactive display.
Copied from tree
Broot is maintained on GitHub [1] and works on Linux, Raspberry Pi OS, macOS, and Windows. Even in very large directories, this nimble file manager provides the user with a better and quicker overview. In principle, broot's display is based on the output from the tree command (Figure 1). However, broot displays the directory tree in a more compact way and makes the display interactive, in contrast to tree. You can search broot's tree display at lightning speed using fzf [2], a fuzzy search tool.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.