Ranger

Ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings, created by Roman Zimbelmann. It provides a fast, keyboard-driven, and visually rich interface for navigating and managing files and directories in the terminal, making it a favorite among Vim users and command-line power users. The name Ranger reflects its design philosophy of ranging through the file system. The interface uses a Miller columns layout: three columns are displayed side by side, with the parent directory on the left, the current directory in the middle, and a preview of the selected file or the contents of the selected directory on the right. This layout provides constant context about where the user is in the file system hierarchy and what the selected item contains, without requiring the user to navigate back and forth. Key features include: VI-style keybindings throughout (hjkl for navigation, dd for cut, yy for copy, pp for paste, and hundreds of other Vim-inspired commands), a powerful file preview system that can display text files with syntax highlighting, images (via w3m, ueberzug, or Kitty image protocol), PDF documents (converted to text or images), archive contents (listing files within ZIP, TAR, and other archives), and source code (with syntax highlighting), file operations (copy, move, delete, rename, create, and chmod), bookmarks for quick navigation to frequently accessed directories, tabs for multiple file manager sessions, customizable commands via a Python-based plugin API (users can define custom commands and keybindings in rc.conf and commands.py), integration with external programs (opening files in their default applications), a bulk rename mode (for renaming multiple files at once using a text editor), directory bookmarks, and a task manager for background operations. As of 2026, Ranger has over 16,000 stars.