Vifm Q&A - Recent questions and answers

Answered: vifm --remote example with if then statement

Wed, 06 May 2026 13:11:24 +0000

You can change the outer quotes to double quotes:

vifm --remote +":if filetype('.') == 'dir' | echo 'Directory' | else | echo 'File' | endif"

If you're going to nest quotes, they need to be of a different kind or some kind of escaping is necessary.

Answered: Integrating zoxide with vifm

Sun, 03 May 2026 09:38:17 +0000

This is more of an answer rather than a question.

Then I'll do a bit of a review and ask a question :)

let $dir_name = fnameescape($Z_PICK)
cd $dir_name

This breaks entering into directories that require escaping. Either do cd $Z_PICK or execute 'cd' fnameescape($Z_PICK) (this variant can use a global variable like g:z_pick instead to not affect environment). Unlike in a shell, environment variables are expanded after parameter splitting.

I use zoxide to quickly jump to most recent directories which matches a substring.

What if it guessed the directory incorrectly, just do another try? Doesn't this mess up history so that cd - and $OLDPWD point to the path opened by mistake?

Answered: copy transfer speed

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:39:17 +0000

You can try disabling data synchronization in 'iooptions':

set iooptions-=datasync

Mind that unless keeping more data in RAM permits effective parallelisation of writes, Vifm's speed is closer to the real one (i.e., how fast data lands at the destination) and dd shows how fast you can load things into RAM buffers (possibly at the cost of pushing useful data out of it). There are sync and nocache parameters/options for dd as well in case you want to perform more comparisons.

dd may also keep all data in the kernel without copying to/from application, Vifm doesn't do that, making it somewhat slower.

Answered: Passing v:servername to script

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:29:19 +0000

The %{expression} syntax is specific to the 'statusline' option. A mapping could insert it via expression register (<c-r>=fnameescape(v:servername)<cr> in place of "%{v:servername}") or you could do

let $VIFM_SERVER_NAME = v:servername

in your vifmrc and then just use "$VIFM_SERVER_NAME".

Answered: all menus available

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:54:54 +0000

:apropos
:fileviewer
:filetype
:vifm (same as :version).

cnoreabbrev...........display noremap cmdline abbrevs

Nope, the menu is the same as for :cabbrev.

his[tory]..................display a menu with list of visited directories

The command displays various histories depending on its parameter.

Answered: Howto compare files ?

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:31:31 +0000

Hello,

Assuming that you want to compare files via Vim, the following can be used:

" use Vim to diff files
" uses selection of the current pane when it contains more than one file
" otherwise uses left pane file and right pane file keeping order inside Vim
command! diff : if selected() < 2
            \ |     if paneisat('right') && paneisat('bottom')
            \ |         execute '!vim -d %%C %%c'
            \ |     else
            \ |         execute '!vim -d %%c %%C'
            \ |     endif
            \ | else
            \ |     execute '!vim -d %%f'
            \ | endif

I should actually add this to sample vifmrc.

Answered: Automatic switch between light and dark themes

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:54:13 +0000

I’m not sure how you switch between light and dark themes, but if you are able to set an environment variable while doing so, you could add the following to your Vifm config:

if $IS_DARK_THEME == '1'
  colorscheme Default
else
  colorscheme dwmlight
endif

Answered: Folder name with dot

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:29:35 +0000

Sounds like you're using {ext} in 'viewcolumns', while you want to use {fileext}.

Answered: recall last selection

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:03:18 +0000

3rd method: use a command-line range (mostly useful for searching in a single file/directory with :.grep ...).

How to recall the lost selection (a bit like copen) after the grep command?

Use gs key for this. There is a similar gv key, but it restores only the last visually selected range, so not suitable for complex cases.

Answered: Three Letter Marker for filter

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:02:02 +0000

The total number of filtered out files is the only statistics explicitly collected by the code. Number of files excluded by a local filter can be derived in the code. Even this information is not exposed other than via the %x macro, so at the moment there is no way to display flags that you describe.

Answered: File/folder count on the bottom right corner

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 22:35:53 +0000

Hi,

Macros in 'rulerformat' reflect number of entries in the current list, hence .. (not sure why it's . on the screenshot) is counted when present.

You can hide .. by changing 'dotdirs' which will affect number of entries.

Affecting the count while keeping the entry will take adding new macros (although not really sure what to do about tree-views with multiple .. entries) or allowing formatting 'rulerformat' in Lua.

Answered: synchronize vifm with Xviewer

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 23:00:15 +0000

Hi,

This Xviewer? I don't see it's documentation, but this list of options doesn't look promising. It apparently supports plugins, so maybe that interface could be used (by way of writing a plugin).

In general for this to work you need to somehow communicate cursor position back to Vifm. A viewer needs to expose this information and then it should be sent/returned to Vifm.

Answered: behavior Enter Key

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 13:46:55 +0000

Seems like you're just closing the active window (terminal) in both cases. You can map <cr> similarly:

nnoremap <cr> : if filetype('.', 1) == 'dir'
            \ |     open
            \ | else
            \ |     execute '!'.$VIFM_TERMINAL 'vim %c &'
            \ | endif<cr>

An alternative is changing 'vicmd' option, but there a script may be necessary to keep everything working as expected.

Edit: added 1 parameter to resolve symbolic links.

Edit 2: this change fixes :open for symbolic links to directories when vifm is not present in $PATH. Until then, use cd %c as a functionally-equivalent workaround.

Answered: open file with the second filetype command from :file

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 13:31:43 +0000

Hi,

There is a form of :file which accepts prefix of a command to run. Not the same as position from the top, but the purpose is similar: to pick non-default handler. As an example, :file so opens soffice %c for a PDF file in case of the following configuration:

filextype *.pdf zathura %f %i &, apvlv %c, xpdf %c, soffice %c

Answered: Zoom preview window

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 11:36:00 +0000

The reason is that quickview is tied to the other pane, so that pane is kept visible. This behaviour dates back when one couldn't focus a quickview and enter view mode, so maybe Ctrl+W o could be permitted in this case with the other pane being shown automatically on exiting view mode.

By the way, there is also Ctrl+W | to maximize a window. "explore" view (after e) can also be used in the only mode.

Answered: Locked (permanent) tabs

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 23:31:23 +0000

Navigating from a "locked" tab automatically creates a new one.

Seems like this feature is meant for pane-level tabs and wouldn't fit global tabs. I might have even used it in some file manager, but it didn't really suit my workflow. It sounds kinda simple to do, but I'm sure there are various corner cases.

Admittedly, the functionality is somewhat similar to marks, but feels less rigid as it does not require editing the config.

Marks also don't require editing the config and can survive a restart. Just add bmarks to the value of 'vifminfo' option.

Answered: Show only symlinks

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:31:03 +0000

This should do it:

command! LnOnly find . -t l -H --max-depth=1 %u

You can also press b key in a menu to turn it into a list of files (limited to menus that present such lists).

Answered: Hide progress dialogue

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:42:29 +0000

There is no way to hide the dialog after it's open. This isn't related to 'uioptions', showing it by pressing i works the same.

Answered: show UID only

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 17:15:48 +0000

That's not how uid is supposed to work, the behaviour you see is a bug. Thanks for bringing this up.

Answered: Image preview issue in vifm after upgrading kitty

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 17:00:19 +0000

The list of changes for v0.43 mentions:

A new protocol for multiple cursors in the terminal (#8927)

I would think it may be related, but there are a few other things that look suspicious. This may need bisecting differences between v0.42.2 and v0.43.

Answered: prompt sudo password

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 14:21:38 +0000

I worked around that with this custom configuration

nnoremap <c-s> :!sudo -E vifm %c<cr>
if system('whoami') == "root"
  hi StatusLine guifg=#fb4934
endif

Answered: Different font for text and icons

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:41:57 +0000

Fonts are configured in a terminal emulator. I don't remember seeing a way to specify a font from an application and if there is one, it's unlikely to be possible to use more than one font at a time (their metrics would have to match or be adjusted on the fly in order for this to have a chance to work).

If JetBrains Mono has some icons, JetBrainsMono Nerd Font may use different (potentially bigger) glyphs for them. Otherwise you would probably have to combine fonts or edit one with FontForge or a similar application to scale/replace glyphs.

Answered: fileviewer: catchall for readable and non-readable files

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 17:50:08 +0000

You could use mimetypes for that, but they won't always give an expected result. For example, you list .py-files as unreadable, but their mimetype is text/x-script.python.

" non-directory with a mimetype starting with "text/"
fileviewer {*[^/]}<text/*> text-file-handler

" non-directory with a mimetype not starting with "text/"
fileviewer {*[^/]}!<text/*> non-text-file-handler

Answered: selects files/folders matching a pattern

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:36:15 +0000

Use :select command:

select *.jpg
select *part* " or select /part/
" jpg or png files that don't contain "to" substring
select {*.jpg,*.png}!/to/

The patterns are like in :filetype.

Answered: add automatic increasing numbering to a list of files/folders

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:32:27 +0000

I can't think of a way to do that without using Vim via :rename. There you can add numbers (e.g., :%s/^/1/), select a column of numbers visually with Ctrl-V and do gCtrl-A.

Answered: flat view - files starting with dot

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:10:41 +0000

%u doesn't filter out anything. From man fd:

By default fd will exclude hidden files and directories, as well as any files that match gitignore rules or ignore rules in .ignore or .fdignore files.

So you want to add -u or -H flag to your command.

Answered: macro for custom view

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 14:07:59 +0000

When inside of a custom view, %d is expanded to the root of the view which may not correspond to the directory where a file is located. Which directory path do you want to get in the end? If it's where the file is, %c:p:h should do, but the way you describe it is as if you want %d exactly how it's expanded. Please clarify.

Answered: shortcut for relativenumber

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 12:18:50 +0000

That's possible. Key's count is available in v:count and v:count1, which together with :execute and :open can do what you want using a relative position to go to a specific line (see):

nnoremap <silent> u :<c-u>execute '.-'.v:count '| open'<cr>

Ctrl-U is there to get rid of the range inserted if doing something like 10:. Change - to + to move down:

nnoremap <silent> U :<c-u>execute '.+'.v:count '| open'<cr>

Answered: Blink cursor

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 14:35:17 +0000

You could try a different colorscheme: https://github.com/vifm/vifm-colors

Answered: proposition for improving message : 1 file inserted

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 14:23:56 +0000

I have noticed the same issue. When I yank a file and then later use the p or the P key (see :help vifm-p), I am often a bit unsure if I hit the correct key, because the same message is displayed: 1 file inserted.

Open vifm with multiple tabs

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:59:51 +0000

Hi,

In case anyone wants to open a specified set of tabs when opening vifm but doesn't want to duplicate them when reloading

" Open vifm with three tabs per pane. The first tab of each pane is in current
" directory. Remaining are home directory.
"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if tabpagenr("$") == 1
    windo tabnew
    cd ~ ~
    windo tabnew
    cd ~ ~
    tabnext 1
    winc w
    tabnext 1
    winc w
endif

Sync tabs (like :sync for panes)

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:45:38 +0000

Hi,

I added commands to my $MYVIFMRC that can synchronize the view of the next tab to the current pane's directory or directory under the current cursor. Just posting it here in case it's useful for anyone else and in case anyone wants to suggest another alternative.

" Sync next tab to current directory
command! TabSync : let $DIR_CUR = "%d"
                \| tabnext
                \| cd "$DIR_CUR"
                \| tabprev
nnoremap <a-u> :TabSync<cr>
" Sync next tab to directory under cursor
command! TabSyncCursor : let $DIR_CUR = "%c"
                      \| tabnext
                      \| cd "$DIR_CUR"
                      \| tabprev
nnoremap <a-p> :TabSyncCursor<cr>

I use it in combination with other sync keymaps like below:

" Sync other pane to current directory
nnoremap <a-i> :sync<cr>
" Sync other pane to directory under cursor
nnoremap <a-o> :sync %c<cr>

Answered: catch-all preview

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:52:34 +0000

Looks correct to me, although you may want to change <text/plain> to <text/*>. It's also possible that some application-specific mime types need to be listed, you can look those up in Ctrl+G dialog when a file isn't previewed as you expect.

Answered: File highlight broken?

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Highlighting based on file type has higher priority than highlighting based on file name/mime. You probably copied those files from a FAT or other Windows drive and they have executable bit set. Try running :chmod -x with one of those files under the cursor.

Answered: Open .xlsx file with sc-im

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 07:38:44 +0000

My Vifm opens .xlsx files with sc-im as expected. My configuration file contains the following line:

filextype {*.xls,*.xlsx,*.ods} sc-im %f

Maybe the & is causing your issue?

Which application appears first when running :file, sc-im or
LibreOffice?
Do you get the same Background Process Error: Device not configured error when you manually select sc-im from the :file menu?

Answered: Filter by file permission

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:26:13 +0000

No internal means for that, but custom view could be used to do such filtering:

command! perm :select * | !stat -c'%%%%A/%%%%n' %%f | grep '^.%a' | cut -d/ -f1 --complement %%u

perm rwx
perm .w.

Answered: Look behind in filetype regex pattern.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:48:14 +0000

Hello,

Yes, POSIX regexps (man 7 regex) don't have positive/negative look behind/ahead, but you can still achieve the desired effect in Vifm. You even almost got it, just drop the comma:

filetype {*.tar.gz} command-1
filetype {*.gz}!{*.tar.gz} command-2

filetype {a},{b} command is just a shorthand for

filetype {a} command
filetype {b} command

That's basically a disjunction (logical OR). filetype {a}{b} command, on the other hand, is a conjunction (logical AND) of 2 patterns each of which can be negated individually.

Answered: cp -n warning popup

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 21:38:23 +0000

Hello,

Thanks for your kind words and bringing this to my attention, I wasn't aware coreutils had this change of behaviour and a new warning. Will have to take it into account.

Adding set syscalls (docs) to your configuration should address the issue by not using cp for copying.

Answered: Unsuccessful key binding (F3 and F4 keys)

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 10:44:45 +0000

I'm not sure what xterm-color terminfo entry is for and why it's defined this way, but it uses definitions of functional keys that don't match what XTerm is actually sending:

[~]$ infocmp xterm-color xterm-256color | grep 'kf[34]:'
        kf3: '\E[13~', '\EOR'.
        kf4: '\E[14~', '\EOS'.
[~]$ Ctrl+V F3: ^[OR
[~]$ Ctrl+V F4: ^[OS

Using xterm or xterm-256color should work fine. There may be a configuration option for XTerm which makes it compatible with xterm-color.

Answered: How to expand macros when adding bookmarks

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 10:09:57 +0000

If I understood you correctly:

nnoremap <silent> B :execute 'bmark!' '%c' expand('%c')<cr>

Answered: How to 'detatch' an edit?

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:22:09 +0000

Try this:

nnoremap <silent> ,C :write | execute '!foot nvim $MYVIFMRC' | restart full<cr>

execute isn't a function, so no need for parenthesis. It runs command-line command, so you want ! to run an external command. :execute is needed to allow running :restart after a |, otherwise it would be passed to a shell.

Answered: How to `ga` or `gA` every file and directory on open?

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 15:54:13 +0000

command! size :normal ga
autocmd DirEnter * %size

This will work, but may consume a lot of memory if you change to something like /.

Answered: How would one toggle an executable?

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 10:20:18 +0000

There is no test command/function, need to use system() for that:

command togglex :
\|   if system(expand('test -x %%c && echo x')) == 'x'
\|     chmod -x
\|   else
\|     chmod +x
\|   endif

nnoremap <silent> * :togglex<cr>

don't see any examples or questions about it

Toggling a permission seems uncommon to me.

Answered: Archive mounts on macOS

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 12:39:53 +0000

There is a macfuse kext, but Apple is currently trying to move such things into userspace.

As long as it works, you can use it.

There is fuse-t, but it seems to only have fuse-zip, so there is no support for .rar or .7z files.

macfuse and fuse-t don't implement custom file systems themselves, they only provide means for such implementations. fuse-t should work with many existing FUSE implementations, they don't need to target it specifically. For example, I think here the same ntfs-3g installation was used with both macfuse and fuse-t.

Are there any other ways to do this?

Not that I know of, but I know very little about macOS, so there may very well be other options.

Answered: Questions about the Lua API

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:17:18 +0000

1) Is the Lua API the only way to add a description to a key binding?

v0.15 will allow doing this without Lua as:

nnoremap <help><Space>r {edit file as root}:RootEditFile<CR>

Syntax is similar to that of :file[x]type but requires <help> for disambiguation, so ends up somewhat verbose.

2) According to the help file: "Builtin print() function puts messages to plugin's log (see |vifm-:plugins| menu)." Where can I view these logs? Running :plugins just shows a list of plugins. I've been using vifm.sb.info('...') instead for logging, but that isn't ideal.

You need to press e to see the log. Search for Plugins (:plugins) menu in documentation (there is no tag for it, it's below this).

You can simply do print = vifm.sb.info to not have to open the menu while debugging. It turned out to not be convenient, but allows to see messages from different plugins without mixing them up.

3) Is there something built-in to pretty-print tables? In Neovim you can do :lua print( vim.inspect( tbl ) ).

No, I think Lua itself doesn't offer anything for that and Vifm doesn't offer pretty-printing either.

4) A helper function like the following can pretty-print tables:

How would one print, for example, vifm.currview(), which is of type Vifmview? I've also encountered the type userdata.

Vifmview is also user data, but not a lighweight one (that one is reported as userdata). These types are implemented in C, although syntactically they can act similar to tables.

5) I expected there would be something like vim.cmd() in Neovim, but if I understand correctly, it's impossible to call a built-in command like :messages or :normal! j from the Lua API? For the latter, there's an alternative (local c = vifm.currview().cursor; c.pos = c.pos + 1), but for the former, there isn't?

There is intentionally no vifm.cmd(), couple paragraphs on that are here. It's easy to add but there is no way to guarantee proper escaping for arguments because :commands are too irregular in how they treat input. In my experience with Vim plugins partially written in Python, that was a source of never ending issues and I see no solution.

This does mean that an equivalent of each :command needs to be exposed to Lua in its own way and there isn't one for :messages.

6) There isn't a way to run Lua from the Vifm command-line either, like :lua print('foo') in Neovim?

No, for the same reason, although this can be implemented by a plugin:

local function lua(info)
    local code = string.format('return tostring(%s)', info.args)
    local f, err = load(code, ":Lua args")
    if f == nil then
        vifm.sb.error("Failed to compile arguments: "..err)
    else
        vifm.sb.info(f())
    end
end

local function luaS(info)
    local f, err = load(info.args, ":Lua args")
    if f == nil then
        vifm.sb.error("Failed to compile arguments: "..err)
    else
        f()
    end
end

local added = vifm.cmds.add {
    name = "Lua",
    description = "evaluate and print a Lua expression",
    handler = lua,
    minargs = 1,
    maxargs = -1,
}
if not added then
    vifm.sb.error("Failed to register :Lua")
end

local added = vifm.cmds.add {
    name = "LuaS",
    description = "execute a Lua statement",
    handler = luaS,
    minargs = 1,
    maxargs = -1,
}
if not added then
    vifm.sb.error("Failed to register :LuaS")
end

return {}

Answered: The cmdline blinks when running long string map key than screen width

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 12:07:10 +0000

Hi,

Even without <silent> I can't notice the effect in xterm or st, but it's barely visible in vte sometimes (it's a sample terminal). What's your terminal and Vifm version? Terminal shouldn't make a difference here, but won't hurt to know it.

even adding "silent" parameter after nnoremap, it also doesn't work

Are you sure you're not defining the mapping more than once? You can try commenting out the part of vifmrc you're editing to see whether the mapping is still available (e.g., :nmap gT).

Defining a helper :command could be a workaround:

nnoremap gT :gT<cr>
command gT : if v:count == 0
          \|     execute 'normal gT'
          \| elseif v:count > tabpagenr('$')
          \|     tabmove
          \| elseif v:count >= tabpagenr()
          \|     execute 'tabmove' v:count
          \| elseif v:count < tabpagenr()
          \|     execute 'tabmove' v:count - 1
          \| endif

Answered: Misc feedback

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 17:40:10 +0000

Thanks for the feedback!

When deleting two directories, you get the message Are you sure you want to delete 2 files? and after confirmation the message 2 files deleted.

Will change to "items". Being more specific requires more bookkeeping and deciding what to do with things like symbolic links to directories.

A :messages clear (sub)command might be useful when debugging user commands, like in Vim.

Will add.

I don't know if Vifm is to blame for this, but when using the AppImage version, FUSE mounts over SSH work very slowly, to the point of being almost unusable. The Homebrew version works just fine.

I don't see there being a difference. Is there a delay when you're making a connection or is everything slow? The first one could be related to things like SSH agent and associated timeouts.

Is it possible to configure how often the file is reloaded when using automatic forwarding? It feels pretty slow at the moment. Some tests seem to indicate that it's only forwarded once every 10 seconds, while tail -f reflects updates instantaneously.

You can adjust 'timeoutlen' which is 1 second by default (don't know how you got 10 seconds). There is no delaying of file checks, they happen in response to key presses or when reading a key times out.

The link to the #vifm@Freenode IRC channel on the website should probably be changed to Libera Chat, or removed.

I wasn't sure if that channel still exists and checked it only now. Seems to be gone (there is a new one in its place), so removed the link.

I noticed two very small typos in the documentation. I could make a PR, but I'm not sure how to do so because there is both vifm-app.txt and vifm.1 and I assume one is generated based on the other.

Will fix. The files are just edited at the same time. I'm not aware of ways to generate one from the other (although there might be tools for trivial cases).

Answered: How to execute a single command from sudo?

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 17:19:14 +0000

I like to use the following command and key binding for situations like this:

command! RootRelaunchVifm :!sudo vifm %d %D
nnoremap <Space>R :RootRelaunchVifm<CR>

You hit the key binding to relaunch Vifm as root, enter your password, move the file to /usr/local/bin, and finally run :quit (or a corresponding key binding) to return to your regular Vifm instance.

how to make vifm choose a single file

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 04:37:45 +0000

CONTEXT: I am trying to use vifm as a xdg file chooser using the xdg-desktop-portal-termfilechooser library. But facing some limitations.

vifm --choose-files and --choose-dir always prints a newline to stdout when selection is abort/or no selection.
vifm --choose-files command line argument that lets user select one or multiple objects and then returns the selection. Unlike ranger, vifm doesn't have a mechanism where only one selection is valid and in case multiple objects selected, it will block and show warning. Is there any plugin or method to simulate such behavior?
Is there a navigation mode for normal command line operation? (afaik it only works in search mode)

How to spawn Erlang LSP server when editing Erlang source?

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 18:06:28 +0000

When using standalone Vim, the Erlang Language Server works as expected, using the following CocConfig:

{
  "languageserver": {
    "erlang": {
      "command": "erlang_ls",
      "filetypes": ["erlang"]
    }
  }
}

But when I try to open and edit Erlang source files from within Vifm, I get the following error:

erlang client: couldn't create connection to server.
Launching server using command erlang_ls failed. Error: spawn erlang_ls ENOENT

What command should I use in order to spawn the Erlang Lsp from within Vifm?

Thank you in advance.