Broot (pronounce "b-root")

An interactive tree view, a fuzzy search, a balanced BFS descent and customizable commands.

Get an overview of a directory, even a big one:

Notice the "unlisted" ? That's what makes it usable where the old tree command would produce pages of output.

Find a directory then cd to it:

You can this way navigate to a directory with the minimum amount of keystrokes, even if you don't exactly remember where it is.

Most useful keys for this:

• the letters of what you're looking for
• <enter> to select a directory (staying in broot)
• <esc> to get back to the previous state or clear your search
• :c to get back to the shell having cd to the selected directory (see below)
• :q if you just want to quit (<esc> works too)

See what takes space:

To toggle size display, you usually hit :s.

Never lose track of file hierarchy while you fuzzy search:

broot tries to select the most relevant file. You can still go from one match to another one using <tab> or arrow keys.

Apply a personal shorcut to a file:

broot is fast and never blocks, even when you make it search a big slow disk (any keystroke interrupts the current search to start the following one).

Usage

General Usage

Launch it (see broot --help for launch options).

Type a few letters to fuzzy search files or directories.

Enter brings you to a directory or opens a file.

A command starts with a space or : (as you like) and is usually only one letter (for example :s to toggle sizes, :q to quit, :p to go up the tree, etc.).

Type ? to see the list of commands and the path to their configuration.

At any time the esc key brings you to the previous state.

Use broot to see directory sizes

You can either start broot normally then type :s which toggles size display, or start broot with

broot --sizes

You might prefer to hide non directory files while looking at sizes. Use :f to show only folders.

Use broot for navigation

broot is convenient to find a directory then cd to it. The c command of the default configuration is here for this purpose.

But broot needs a companion function in the shell in order to be able to change directory. To enable this feature, add this to your .bashrc (or the relevant file for another shell):

# start broot and let it change directory
function br {
    f=$(mktemp)

    (
	set +e
	broot --out "$f" "$@"
	code=$?
	if [ "$code" != 0 ]; then
	    rm -f "$f"
	    exit "$code"
	fi
    )
    code=$?
    if [ "$code" != 0 ]; then
	return "$code"
    fi

    d=$(cat "$f")
    rm -f "$f"

    if [ "$(wc -c <(echo -n "$d") | head -c1)" != 0 ]; then
	cd "$d"
    fi
}

(you'll have to source the file or open a new terminal)

With this addition, you can do just br to lauch broot, and typing :c then enter will cd for you. You can search and change directory in one command: mylosthing:c.

You can still use broot normally, you won't change directory if you don't hit :c.

Flags

Flags are displayed at the bottom right, showing the settings regarding hidden files and .gitignore rules.

Git Repositories

.gitignore files are parsed and used depending on the current "gitignore" setting:

• when "no", .gitignore files are ignored
• when "yes", each directory is filtered according to the applied gitignore files (several git repositories may be simultaneously shown)
• when "auto" (default value), gitignore rules are ignored unless the root directory is a git repository or inside one

Installation

From Source

You'll need to have the Rust development environment installed.

Fetch the Canop/broot repository, move to the broot directory, then run

cargo build --release

The executable is written in the target/release directory.

From up to date precompiled binaries

• x86_64-linux

Development

To ease tests during development, a log file can be generated (and followed using tail -f) by using the BROOT_LOG env variable.

For example:

BROOT_LOG=debug cargo run

If you want to discuss the code or features of broot, please come to our chat. If you'd like a new feature, don't hesitate to ask for it.