ranger 1.9.3

ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. It ships with rifle, a file launcher that is good at automatically finding out which program to use for what file type.

screenshot

For mc aficionados there's also the multi-pane viewmode.

two panes multiple panes

This file describes ranger and how to get it to run. For instructions on the usage, please read the man page (man ranger in a terminal). See HACKING.md for development-specific information.

For configuration, check the files in ranger/config/ or copy the default config to ~/.config/ranger with ranger --copy-config (see instructions).

The examples/ directory contains several scripts and plugins that demonstrate how ranger can be extended or combined with other programs. These files can be found in the git repository or in /usr/share/doc/ranger.

A note to packagers: Versions meant for packaging are listed in the changelog on the website.

About

Authors: see AUTHORS file
License: GNU General Public License Version 3
Website: https://ranger.github.io/
Download: https://ranger.github.io/ranger-stable.tar.gz
Bug reports: https://github.com/ranger/ranger/issues
git clone https://github.com/ranger/ranger.git

Design Goals

An easily maintainable file manager in a high level language
A quick way to switch directories and browse the file system
Keep it small but useful, do one thing and do it well
Console-based, with smooth integration into the unix shell

Features

UTF-8 Support (if your Python copy supports it)
Multi-column display
Preview of the selected file/directory
Common file operations (create/chmod/copy/delete/...)
Renaming multiple files at once
VIM-like console and hotkeys
Automatically determine file types and run them with correct programs
Change the directory of your shell after exiting ranger
Tabs, bookmarks, mouse support...

Dependencies

Python (>=2.6 or >=3.1) with the curses module and (optionally) wide-unicode support
A pager (less by default)

Optional dependencies

For general usage:

file for determining file types
chardet (Python package) for improved encoding detection of text files
sudo to use the "run as root" feature
python-bidi (Python package) to display right-to-left file names correctly (Hebrew, Arabic)

For enhanced file previews (with scope.sh):

img2txt (from caca-utils) for ASCII-art image previews
w3mimgdisplay, ueberzug, mpv, iTerm2, kitty, terminology or urxvt for image previews
convert (from imagemagick) to auto-rotate images
rsvg-convert (from librsvg) for SVG previews
ffmpeg, or ffmpegthumbnailer for video thumbnails
highlight, bat or pygmentize for syntax highlighting of code
atool, bsdtar, unrar and/or 7z to preview archives
bsdtar, tar, unrar, unzip and/or zipinfo (and sed) to preview archives as their first image
lynx, w3m or elinks to preview html pages
pdftotext or mutool (and fmt) for textual pdf previews, pdftoppm to preview as image
djvutxt for textual DjVu previews, ddjvu to preview as image
calibre or epub-thumbnailer for image previews of ebooks
transmission-show for viewing BitTorrent information
mediainfo or exiftool for viewing information about media files
odt2txt for OpenDocument text files (odt, ods, odp and sxw)
python or jq for JSON files
jupyter nbconvert for Jupyter Notebooks
fontimage for font previews
openscad for 3D model previews (stl, off, dxf, scad, csg)
draw.io for draw.io diagram previews (drawio extension)

Installing

Use the package manager of your operating system to install ranger. You can also install ranger through PyPI: pip install ranger-fm.

Check current version:

Installing from a clone

Note that you don't have to install ranger; you can simply run ranger.py.

To install ranger manually:

sudo make install

This translates roughly to:

sudo python setup.py install --optimize=1 --record=install_log.txt

This also saves a list of all installed files to install_log.txt, which you can use to uninstall ranger.

Getting Started

After starting ranger, you can use the Arrow Keys or h j k l to navigate, Enter to open a file or q to quit. The third column shows a preview of the current file. The second is the main column and the first shows the parent directory.

Ranger can automatically copy default configuration files to ~/.config/ranger if you run it with the switch --copy-config=( rc | scope | ... | all ). See ranger --help for a description of that switch. Also check ranger/config/ for the default configuration.

Going Further

To get the most out of ranger, read the Official User Guide.
For frequently asked questions, see the FAQ.
For more information on customization, see the wiki.

Community

For help, support, or if you just want to hang out with us, you can find us here: * IRC: channel #ranger on Libera.Chat. Don't have an IRC client? Join us via the webchat! * Reddit: r/ranger