Guth

Guth is a native Rust file manager for fast, bounded local desktop workflows. It combines a compact Nautilus/Finder-style interface with asynchronous previews, explicit resource limits, undoable operations, and Linux desktop folder integration.

Highlights

• Adaptive grid and list views with proportion-locked dimensional icons.
• Places sidebar, pinned folders, history, breadcrumbs, location entry, and current-folder search.
• Debounced, cancellable recursive search on one bounded background worker.
• Image thumbnails and optional ffmpeg video posters and hover strips.
• Default inline image, video, text, code, Markdown, CSV, and log previews.
• Multi-selection, range selection, copy, cut, paste, duplicate, rename, trash, permanent delete, and undo.
• Drag folders onto Pinned Folders, files into the current folder, or selected entries onto Trash.
• Floating Properties, Settings, and preview surfaces instead of a permanent inspector pane.
• Persistent dark/light themes, view settings, bookmarks, background image, and opacity controls.
• Explicit limits for scans, searches, operations, thumbnails, previews, launchers, history, logs, and undo state.

Install

Install the published binary with Cargo:

cargo install guth

Run Guth in your home folder or open a specific directory:

guth
guth /path/to/folder

Linux Folder Integration

Install Guth's embedded desktop entry for file-manager discovery and Open With support:

guth --install-desktop

Install the entry and make Guth the default handler for inode/directory:

guth --set-default

--set-default intentionally invokes xdg-mime. --install-desktop only invokes it when migrating an existing KnottFiles default association to Guth; normal startup never changes the default file manager.

The installed desktop entry uses the exact UTF-8 executable path returned by the running Guth binary, so it does not depend on the desktop session inheriting Cargo's PATH.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Knotwork Previews

Guth includes the Knotwork registry with two bundled preview plugins:

• Knotlook Media uses one active image worker plus the latest pending request, and uses the thumbnail pipeline for video posters and strips.
• Knotread Text uses one active reader plus the latest pending request, reads at most 2 MiB and 2,000 lines, detects likely binary files, labels truncation/lossy UTF-8, and provides line numbers and case-insensitive find.

Previewable files open inline by default when their plugin is enabled. Shift+Enter and Open Externally always route to the system application.

Filesystem Safety

• Ordinary delete moves items to the Freedesktop local trash.
• Permanent delete requires an explicit confirmation click and cannot be accepted with Enter.
• Destination paths inside a copied/moved source are rejected to prevent recursive self-copy.
• Conflicting destinations receive copy, copy 2, and similar names instead of overwriting data.
• Operation source count, traversal item count, and traversal depth are bounded.
• Undo is bounded and best-effort. A failed multi-item undo may have applied earlier items, so the consumed action is not re-queued with stale paths.
• Operation and thumbnail worker disconnects are recovered instead of wedging the UI.
• External child processes are reaped through a bounded watcher pool.

Renderer Options

Guth uses egui_glow by default and also compiles the WGPU renderer:

guth --renderer glow
guth --renderer glow --gles 2
guth --renderer wgpu --wgpu-backend vulkan,gl --wgpu-power high
guth --gpu preferred
guth --no-vsync

Environment equivalents:

• GUTH_RENDERER=glow|wgpu
• GUTH_GPU=required|preferred|off
• GUTH_GLES=1|2
• GUTH_WGPU_BACKEND=vulkan,gl,metal,dx12,primary,secondary
• GUTH_WGPU_POWER=high|low
• GUTH_FRAME_LATENCY=<positive integer>
• GUTH_VSYNC=true|false

Configuration

Preferences are stored at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/guth/preferences.conf, or ~/.config/guth/preferences.conf when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset. Pinned folders are stored beside it in bookmarks.conf.

The configuration is intentionally plain text. Unknown palette values fall back to the professional dark theme.

On launch, Guth copies missing knottfiles/preferences.conf and knottfiles/bookmarks.conf files into the Guth configuration directory without overwriting Guth files. Missing files are retried on later launches.

Build And Verify

cargo run -- /path/to/folder
cargo fmt --check
cargo test --all-targets
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
RUSTDOCFLAGS="-D warnings" cargo doc --no-deps
cargo package --list

The crates.io payload is restricted in Cargo.toml to Rust sources, desktop data, README.md, LICENSE, and Cargo manifests. Local notes, generated targets, editor state, screenshots, and session artifacts are not packaged.

Project Layout

License

Guth is available under the MIT License. See LICENSE.