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GNU Midnight Commander
- bmackenty 1y agoStill used in Poland. I still manage some systems using mcedit.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- shmerl 1y agoVery cool successor of Norton Commander idea.
- ilvez 1y agoVolkov Commander anyone?
- JdeBP 1y agoIf we're going to individually name every Orthodox File Manager, we are going to take some while. (-:
- xiphias2 1y agoYou mean like FAR commander? ;)
- gschizas 1y agoFAR Manager. They went civilian :)
- machomaster 1y agoDos Navigator.
- lepicz 1y agom602
- lepicz 1y agovolkov was a great virus detector its size was right at the edge of segment (64k) so when a virus appended to the .com binary, volkov stopped working
- selcuka 1y agoUnfortunately there were also badly written, overwriting viruses that destroyed the host. I made a COM-to-EXE convertor back in time so that I can compress them with LZEXE (I don't remember anything about it, but I guess I just prepended an empty relocation table). It would have been interesting to incorporate that functionality in a virus.
- tyfon 1y agoI still use volcov commander on my dos machines :) And MC on the *nixes of course.
- auselen 1y agoI remember asking to my friend how do you use ‘nc’ in Linux and he answering “type ‘mc’”.
- Nursie 1y agoI haven't used this for a long old time. Back in the day it was the only way to recover your university dissertation when you'd rm -rf'd in the wrong directory. Go on, ask me how I know ... I've not had much cause to use it since then though.
- danielktdoranie 1y agoOkay, I’ll bite mate: How do you know?
- antonvs 1y agoThey rm -rf'd the wrong directory, lost their dissertation, and used mc to recover it.
- Nursie 1y agoYeah, the answer was there in the question really :) That was not a good day, about a week before submission was due. I unmounted the disk the second I realised what I'd done and started to look for guides on finding lost ext2 inodes. MC to the rescue!
- ksynwa 1y agomc can recover deleted files?
- Nursie 1y agoBack in the 90s it certainly had some features that made it easier to do so, yes. On ext2 file systems (no journaling or other advanced features) it had some method to browse unlinked inodes that were still on disk so you could recover them. They’d then show up in “lost+found”. If you were quick and unmounted as soon as you had realised what you’d done, and the space had not been re-used for anything, you could often get the file back because rm just unlinked the inodes on ext2 IIRC. I imagine that the commands it used under the hood were accessible to anyone with the right know-how, but at the time that’s not something I had, and all the guides started with “use midnight commander” so I did :) (Saying “only way” to recover might be a stretch, it’s true)
- inoffensivename 1y agoCan I get it in a Docker container?
- qalmakka 1y agoLol. Realistically speaking, you'd have to bind mount your entire home for it to be usable then
- fulafel 1y agoMaybe you're just looking to shell around in your container deployed in a pod somewhere.
- jalk 1y agoThat should be doable with `kubectl debug ...` - e.g. attach an ephemeral sidecar container with mc to already running pod. And you would ofc. configure that in K9S as a plugin to easily launch it :)
- serf 1y agounraid has a docker container for Krusader - same thing different flavor, why not.
- BlaDeKke 1y agoThis is not a chat client.
- kqr 1y agoI think this is one of the cases where Nix would be easier. To try it out without polluting your global namespace, nix run nixpkgs#mc.
- p0w3n3d 1y agoIt would be like having `ls` in a container
- 1y ago
- sigttou 1y agoBrings back great memories, used to be my default diff viewer for several years.
- worldsayshi 1y agoHow does it compare to meld?
- riffraff 1y agoWhen I was young and incompetent mc was the only way I knew to remove files starting with a dash :)
- muppetman 1y agoHahah same!!!!
- fuzztester 1y agoOn Unixen? Use: $ rm -- -filename where -filename is the file starting with a dash, and -- means "end of the command-line options".
- userbinator 1y agodual-pane file manager For some reason, the technical term for these is Orthodox File Manager, which I've always thought was an obscure cultural in-joke from the countries where these were most popular --- Eastern Europe and the former USSR. This origin is elaborated at length here: https://softpanorama.org/Articles/introduction_to_orthodox_file_managers.shtml https://softpanorama.org/Articles/introduction_to_orthodox_f...
- Klaster_1 1y agoAt least in Russia, "orthodox" has an extra connotation that's not strictly coupled to church, akin more to "one true way", as in "orthodox way to learn a tech stack". With a negation, it becomes something like "wrong" or even "heretical", as in "pizza with pineapple".
- andrewshadura 1y agoWhat you're describing is the meaning of the word in English. I suspect using the word православный with this meaning started as a joke transplanting the English meaning of the word onto the corresponding Russian word.
- kgeist 1y ago"Orthodox" in Russian is "pravoslavny", literally "right faith" (pravyj = right, correct). I think it also contributes to the meaning. "The right way".
- rusk 1y agoMeans the same thing in Ireland too! My understanding is it derives from greek for “ordinary teaching” we also use the term heterodox for a cultural setting that encourages different types of thought. The term Paradox is a challenging or somewhat contradictory idea. We also use the term orthodox for a right handed boxer. “Southpaw” is non-orthodox left handed.
- fithisux 1y agoFun fact, on Windows I stopped using File Explorer and use Midnight Commander. Now that I am more into the command line, I may need to give it a try.
- lucas_membrane 1y agoFun fact (???) wayback about 40 years ago Central Point Software was humiliating Microsoft with its suites of utilities for Microsoft's OS's, which included file managers for Windows (and MS-DOS IIRC), and was a top rated #1 best seller. Microsoft graciously offered to buy a license for said software from Central Point, which they would make a standard part of windows. This was the kind of deal that practical realists tend to accept, even though it spells DOOM with a capital 3-finger salute. 'Tis great to see something as versatile as the wheel and axle or the Oklahoma speed wrench still rolling along.
- kouteiheika 1y agoI love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again to get back to MC; this allows you to easily use MC for things it is the most efficient for, and normal command-line for things where that is better).
- pimeys 1y agoI use it especially when moving files around in my NAS and it is awesome. For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.
- unmole 1y ago> and you can split the view You could do the same with Nautilus. But in their infinite wisdom GNOME developers decided to remove that ability.
- tomrod 1y agoThe stories about GNOME dev make me sad. Not quite as bad as resume-driven development changes to core tech products, but not too far off either. I like things that work. Somehow that makes me a luddite!
- overfeed 1y ago> It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. I wish mc could browse remote URLs, and I'm tempted to author an mc clone in Go to address this particular pain-point. Maybe some day handcrafting bespoke rsync/rclone commands will frustrate me enough to motivate me.
- lepicz 1y agoMouseless Commander :)
- migueldeicaza 1y agoGood memory!
- vsviridov 1y agoI've been using `mc` for decades... In fact, in my early professional days as a software dev, I've written entire systems with PHP using `mcedit` (the built-in editor), because I didn't know `vim` then, and `mcedit` had syntax highlighting...
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoMostly used Notepad++ or SciTE ( https://www.scintilla.org/ https://www.scintilla.org/ ) over the years, as the number of languages/platforms I traverse made it a consistent option for dealing with various document encodings etc. I thought mc and mcedit was cool, but needed something small and portable within a fairly locked-down environment ( "No [root] for you!" as the admin would say.) =3
- throwaway53021 1y agoMany years ago, I used UltraEdit. It was fast, light weight(ish) and supported huge files.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoWait, what? I've never seen syntax highlighting in mcedit. I'd be looking predominantly at Prolog files to be honest but those normally have a .pl extension so I should at least be seeing Perl-like highlights? (pun totally coincidental)
- latchkey 1y agoBrings back memories. This is one of my older open source contributions that's still visible. I helped port it to a/ux in the early 90's. Line 98: https://fossies.org/linux/mc/AUTHORS https://fossies.org/linux/mc/AUTHORS It was originally written by Miguel de Icaza who became a semi-famous for his work on Mono and others.
- roywashere 1y agoAnd who started Gnome Desktop! That always strikes me as funny. That he made the ultimate tool for in the terminal, and then move on to write a desktop environment
- latchkey 1y agoIt was kind of the evolution of the time though. We were coming from dumb terminals hooked up to VAX/VMS and Ultrix boxes with kermit, to computers that had a tcp/ip stack and could actually do graphics.
- viraptor 1y agoAnd now porting Godot to iPads as Xodot. https://xogot.com/ https://xogot.com/
- mark_l_watson 1y agoWow, I have absolutely no need for access to a game engine but I still will do the free trial. Some complaints about cost but $3 per week or $30 per year seems reasonable enough. I am a fan of the Swift Playground. Starting when I wrote the Chess program that Apple distributed on their Apple II demo cassette tape, I have been interested in writing games for fun. Unfortunately, while I can code, I need artists and generally people with ‘game design style’ to do anything decent - I had that when I worked at Angel Studios.
- mongol 1y agoI think Miguel's greatest legacy is starting the Gnome project.
- kqr 1y agoFor people on Android phones, Ghost Commander is neat. For people who like the power of Emacs dired, there used to be Sunrise Commander but last I looked it wasn't so actively maintained and had some bugs, so I've sadly gone back to regular dired.
- xenodium 1y agoDired is awesome. It’s replaced a bunch of my terminal usage https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
- gedeon 1y agoTotal Commander for Android not bad either
- imiric 1y agoI liked X-plore on Android, which also supports dual panes. It's not open source, unfortunately.
- JdeBP 1y agoThe thing about Orthodox File Managers when they first came about, that does not occur today, was the amount of time that had to be devoted to explaining that particular features would not work on OS/2, Unices, Linux-based operating systems, or Windows NT because only MS/PC/DR-DOS let programs do things like directly manipulate stuff in some other program's PSP or directly peek/poke video RAM or the keyboard buffer; or that filenames did not necessarily have "extensions"; or that there was more than 1 type of timestamp; or that links and symbolic links existed; or that different people can have different local times on a single machine; or that directories actually have sizes. Today, the DOS Think is far less prevalent. Midnight Commander's screenshots would have looked a little off to OFM users with DOS Think. Today, it's the original MS/PC/DR-DOS tools that will appear odd to novices. They did things like have a narrow 8.3 filename column, omit the dots, use graphics in the filename for system files, use glyphs that one could only obtain through poking C0-range codes into video RAM, change UI elements as one pressed and released the Alt key, and so forth.
- pabs3 1y agoThis with the "Lynx-like motion" panel option and the "Quick view" enabled is the best way to review a source tree. So much so that the Debian ftp-masters use it and a plugin for doing license review of newly introduced packages. https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/20191228133344.GA4943@Macadamia https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/20191228133344.GA4943@...
- pantulis 1y agoThe killer feature in mc was the popup menu that you could configure to run several commands on the selected files. And if memory serves it could be customized on a global or directory specific way.
- kristopolous 1y ago"was"? People still use it. Like a lot. I'm surprised
- pantulis 1y agoGood shout!
- xenodium 1y agoI didn’t use mc much back in the day, but I do use Emacs dired a ton these days. Specially for applying command line utilities to a bunch of files. https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
- unixhero 1y agoWhich menu is that? I never tried it. Been an MC user since 1997.
- faangguyindia 1y agomost of the russian programmers i worked with use this. Not sure if it's taught in university or something.
- lproven 1y agoOrthodox file managers seem to be very much a thing across the Eastern Bloc. I moved from England to Czechia in 2014 and was amazed to discover almost everyone used them. My first job in a Windows company, it had a site licence to Total Commander, and it was preinstalled on all machines. When I told them I found the Windows Explorer to be perfectly fine, people genuinely gaped in amazement at me as if I said I chose to type with my feet or something. But I do. It's very keyboard-controllable, and was fast and efficient until MS started to cram the ribbon UI into it. Since Windows 8 it's been destroyed.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoMazochist :)
- lproven 1y ago:-D I honestly don't mind it. I used the Windows 3 UI, complete with File Manager, until 1996. I didn't mind it at all. But I thought the Windows 95 Explorer was an amazing tool when it was launched, and as soon as Win NT got Explorer with NT 4, I switched to it. I have never been unhappy. I can tile 2 windows side-by-side in moments if I want that old source-and-destination layout. It works absolutely great. I tried Total Commander, and Midnight Commander too, and they don't do anything I can't do in seconds anyway. I really don't get it. It's not that I dislike them, but I am perfectly happy with the replacement. I am not saying anything is wrong with the OFM model but when it went away in the OSes I used 30 years ago, I didn't miss it.
- lofaszvanitt 1y ago+power user
- razodactyl 1y agoxtgold?
- thristian 1y agoYou might be interested in YTree (https://www.han.de/~werner/ytree.html https://www.han.de/~werner/ytree.html), UnixTree (https://www.unixtree.org/ https://www.unixtree.org/), or linuXtree (https://stahlke.org/dan/lxt/ https://stahlke.org/dan/lxt/).
- lproven 1y agoI always preferred XTree to Norton Commander, and I was a heavy Norton user in the 1980s. Delighted to find there are some Linux versions!
- cyberax 1y agoI still love FAR Manager: https://www.farmanager.com/screenshots.php?l=en https://www.farmanager.com/screenshots.php?l=en (UNIX port: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l ). It now even supports true keyboard reporting (through Kitty TTY protocol on compatible terminals) for SSH connections.
- cocodill 1y agothe best norton commander of all
- EbNar 1y agoGreat FM. I still use it consistently, especially when dealing with a large number of files.
- glimmung 1y agoI just couldn't live without this thing. Well, I could but I would be less productive and more grumpy. Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I developed DataEase applications under MS-DOS there was a thing called "Pathminder" [1] which was a very useful tool. Moving to Linux and finding Midnight Commander felt like coming home... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder
- axiolite 1y agoI never could use mc. None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me, who had been using many different GUI file managers over the decades. Which is a shame, because I use SSH a LOT and doing normal file housework via pure CLI is super tedious and error-prone... Fortunately, I went looking more recently, and found the nnn file manager, which works properly with the basic keyboard commands I would expect, and really helped improve my workflow a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nnn_(file_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nnn_(file_manager)
- buserror 1y agoSame here, nnn feels so much lighter too. It also works out of the box, no need to carry around "your" .rc file on dozens of systems as you work
- ranger_danger 1y ago> None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me They're exactly the same as Norton Commander had been since the 80s.
- spookie 1y agoThey probably weren't, huh... in front of computers when it was more of a thing. It sure is a generational thing, I have the same problem with Emacs. But not with Vim.
- axiolite 1y agoRight, but other file managers didn't adopt them. Do you use Norton Commander keyboard shortcuts with Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar, Windows Explorer, Finder, etc? Did anything else adopt most of them? Because if you're only appealing to those who used Norton Commander, that's not a big user base. Using Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts, instead, would give you a vastly larger audience.
- ranger_danger 1y agoNone of those things existed when either program was written though, except maybe a very early Finder.
- mischief6 1y agomy one gripe after using mc for a few years is no parallel transfer support. it slows down significantly when transferring small files compared to one large file.
- unixhero 1y agoThat I agree with. In Total Commander I typically do F5 copy and then put it in the background F2. Then start another. This isn't possible in MC. And also a concrete parallelization is not available. This sounds like a feasible feature request to the upstream MC project! I'm sure Gnu Parallel or just pure C code would be able to handle parallelization of copy jobs. EDIT: Wait! It does have background transfer now. Which means my technique of how I do it in Total Commander will work in MC now as well. It is almost like having Parallelization.
- zaptheimpaler 1y agoI've been using OneCommander [1] on Windows for a few years now, it's great. Also dual pane with lots of extra features and active development. [1] https://www.onecommander.com/ https://www.onecommander.com/
- Ringz 1y agoIf only you could redefine the keyboard shortcuts...
- JNRowe 1y agoYou can, it even ships with two files you can use as examples in mc.{emacs,vim}.keymap. The vim one has my favorite comment in a config file: [editor] # No remapping, just use vim instead of mcedit Given that you can specify the bindings config to use at startup with --keymap you can even configure task specific sets of bindings. This combined with extfs and custom menus makes it a great way to make a personal interface to non-file data sources too.
- Ringz 1y agoThanx! I completely missed that. That’s helpful even though a „Operator Pending Mode„ is missing.
- aquir 1y agoAfter moving from Windows to MacOS mc is the closest to Total Commander - the only software that I’m still missing from MacOS. Reminds me to DOS Navigator and Volkov Commander or even FAR
- hdrz 1y agoTry doublecmd[1], much better then tc, open source, updated frequently, works on all platforms. Oh and written in object pascal, which I like a lot! [1]: https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io
- TiredOfLife 1y agoTried it on linux. It crashed while moving folder. Like the main thing it's used for.
- kwanbix 1y agoIt works fine for me. When did you tested it?
- TiredOfLife 1y agoIn May
- ioma8 1y agoWell while note open-source (but still free), Marta is the best MacOS TotalCommander alternative: https://marta.sh/ https://marta.sh/
- unixhero 1y agoMidnight Commander is available under Brew. https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/ The command to install it is: brew install mc
- mark_l_watson 1y ago
- unwind 1y agoI never used MC (not very much into TUIs) but ages ago I wrote a graphical file manager in the same vein. For me the inspiration came from Directory Opus [1] on the Amiga, which was just awesome. When GTK+ was released in the late 90s, combining my love of C programming with a newfound home in Linux and GTK+'s ability to make complicated graphical interfaces resulted in a dual-pane file manager. It was a great project. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus
- Findecanor 1y agoI find it a little sad that you haven't released a new revision since 2016 [0]. It has not declined in usefulness. Edit: Incorrect:(I'd guess the biggest requested change would have been to update it from using GTK 2 to GTK 3, but I can definitely understand why someone wouldn't want to...) 0: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gentoo/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/gentoo/
- unwind 1y agoWow, massive ego boost, thanks a lot! I thought I had released the GTK 3.x version, but I guess not, then. It might have been that there was something I just couldn't get to behave right, gentoo is somewhat picky about its UI and tries to make it do the right thing in ways that GTK sometimes isn't ready for. Today I guess the target would be GTK 4.x, I tried to align with the latest main version back when I was maintaining it more. Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :|
- Findecanor 1y ago> thought I had released the GTK 3.x version, My bad. You had. Sorry. > Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :| Much congrats!
- zerr 1y agoFunny that it is still available for Windows and costs 60 USD. I wonder who buys such software nowadays.
- hxorr 1y agoI am especially fond of mcedit, the midnight commander editor which can be run independently. Very easy to pick up and use as a casual user as opposed to something like vi
- unixhero 1y agoYes its really great. You should check out Jed's editor on Linux and MultiEdit on MSdos. It continues in the same spirit as MCView. Both are definitely inspired by Turbo Pascal.
- javaunsafe2019 1y agoWe all know it’s a clone of the Norton commander.
- reaperducer 1y agoWe all know it’s a clone of the Norton commander. PathMinder pre-dates Norton Commander by two years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder
- sedatk 1y ago`mc` was a gateway drug for me to switch from DOS to Linux in 1995. Because I hadn't been gotten comfortable with other text editors and file management commands yet, mc and its own text editor (mc -e) had felt very intuitive at the time. I felt at home. I was also amazed by stuff like FTP VFS support. It was so complete and done right.
- hbbio 1y agoI have been using mc for almost 30 years, and the original Norton Commander as a kid before that! Pleasantly surprised to see this topping HN today, and even more than the project and its website are still maintained in 2025.
- spapas82 1y agoIn a restricted environment like a console only system these two pane file managers are very useful. I was a heavy user of norton commander (nc) back in my DOS days. Also these are useful on mobile. However I rarely use them on a graphical environment like windows where I can open arbitrary explorer windows and arrange them as I see like. I guess it depends on what people have experience on...
- vim-guru 1y agoNostalgia! However; dired (and wdired) is more powerful, so I won't be switching back any time soon.
- internet_points 1y agoyou need a new username =P
- iLemming 1y agoWhy? Vim is not just a concrete set of products. It's also an idea. One can perfectly remain a die-hard vimmer and use Emacs. That's a fundamental truth unrecognized only by those who misunderstand either Vim or Emacs, or both.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoI have reasons to believe the comment above was tongue-in-cheek. Specifically I believe this: =P Is a tongue-in-cheek emoticon, but I can see how it can be mistaken for a mobius strip emoticon.
- vim-guru 1y agoI know. I don't even use vim bindings any more.
- iLemming 1y agoYup, only Dired allows you to edit your file structure tree like editing a wiki page and at the same time integrates well with source control. Where else can you mark some files and dirs and see the git log pertaining only marked items so easily? What else can easily integrate with your video player for quickly reviewing a bunch of vids? What else can you use to connect to a remote machine and keep the same worfklows as if the stuff is on your local?
- thom 1y agoI still have great affection for Midnight Commander, like Norton Commander before it. I used to use the latter to initiate a parallel cable connection to my brother's computer for Doom deathmatches, pretty cool for a file manager. For no good reason, here's a screenshot of both of them running side by side on an iPad, which is a thing you can apparently do these days: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYRYTq6WUAAt_1t?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYRYTq6WUAAt_1t?format=jpg&name=...
- reaperducer 1y ago9%[___) Dude, plug that thing in!
- thom 1y agoThe world’s best portable Linux/DOS workstation!
- royskee 1y agoI guess you're not familiar with the iconography, but the little lightning bolt symbol in the battery icon means it is plugged in! (edit: I tried to reproduce your "ASCII art" with unicode lightning bolt but the formatting didn't survive)
- Havoc 1y agoDidn’t realize mc was under gnu banner. Nice. I’ve been trying to get used to ranger since I’m learning vim anyway
- witrak 1y agoIt seems nobody remembers the reason for the F-key assignment in the original i.e. Norton Commander... The assignment was very logical and easy to remember (and use) on the original PC keyboard, where F-keys were located in two columns on the left edge of the keyboard: F1, F2, then F3, F4, and so on. You can immediately see the advantages of the F9 location (the leftmost key at the bottom) and of the proximity of the Browse and Edit keys. I used my left thumb to press F10 - it was in the correct place almost without palm movement... Nowadays I almost don't use Mc (except for file manipulation) because the Linux version has a serious weak point - it blocks the most important keystroke in shell: Tab. It is of course traditionally reserved for panel switching but this role could be deactivated when instead a single command line zone MC would allow to have a multi-line (in NC it was 3 or 4 line) zone for the shell scrolled display. This way it would be possible to have the full-size panel display (with the Tab switching panes) and one keystroke away reduced-size panels with full functionality of the shell tab key in the alternative panel mode... Another disadvantage is the complicated way of changing settings (especially the colors and file attributes display format) in practice forcing trial and error mode... True, it's not needed often but spending hours on it is rather deterrent.
- bronlund 1y agoI still use both Midnight Commander and Total Commander daily. Those are hard habits to kick :D For macOS, I use Forklift.
- yuvadam 1y agoFor anyone looking for more modern terminal file managers: my favorite is yazi since it has great preview capabilities out of the box and requires zero config, but other alternatives are nnn, ranger, walk and lf.
- submeta 1y agoYazi is absolutely phantastic. It can be extended by own scripts. I have configured it to jump to any folder via fzf, find any file in a folder and subfolders via `fd`, and navigate to any folder/subfolder on my system in seconds. I don't use my GUI finders on my Mac anymore. Absolutely recommended.
- haakon 1y agomc user for decades here. I spent a long time teaching myself yazi and configuring it just to my liking, only to realize I don't really use a file manager that much anymore. It's hard to compete with shells for efficiency in most scenarios.
- ramses0 1y ago...and a tip for `ranger`: `alias r='source ranger'` See `cat "$( which ranger )"` for what it does, but TLDR lets your shell `cd` (navigate) to the directory where you've navigated to within ranger. (ie: you can use the alias `r` as a lazy man's `cd`). It has to be done as a shell alias b/c `$PWD` is exclusively a shell concept, can't be modified by a mere program that you're running (thankfully). Other useful bits are sometimes `F2` for interactive file-rename (eg: backspace `.txt` to `.csv` or whatever), mark/tag support so `'d` goes to `~/Downloads`, `'g` goes to `~/Git`, `'t` for `/tmp`, etc. Overall if you're decent at vim there's a lot to love, and otherwise the basics pretty much work like you'd expect with keyboard/gui conventions (arrows, f2, etc).
- 0points 1y agoI been using mc since mandrake days, coming from dos looking for a norton commander replacement. Still use mc in 2025 :-)
- Aldipower 1y agoI still remember how I installed Slackware in 1996 and then found about Midnight Commander by accidentally typing in 'mc'. I LOLed hard as I saw the name "midnight". Still using it today too!!
- penetrarthur 1y agoTotal Commander is still the first thing I install on every fresh Windows install for the last 20 or so years. Copy/move/delete etc keys are the same as in mc.
- pilif 1y agoThey are the same because both projects are inspired by Norton Commander for DOS which also used those keys.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoThe best are the youtube movies that try to explain to amateurs how to use the horrible built in windows file manager WITH A MOUSE!.... while there is total commander.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoWindows Explorer? It's not that bad. Granted, I only ever use it with the keyboard. But then you can tile two windows side-by-side (or four) and it's a bit like a commander of sorts. The only time I ever have to use the mouse in WE is when I try to move to the Quick Access side-bar: sometimes focus gets lost somewhere around all the bloody menus I never use and I can't place it where I want it. It's weird and I'm not describing it clearly because it happens only occasionally and I don't understand exactly how.
- olaf 1y agoI preferred snappy XTree
- integricho 1y agoFor some strange reason I am attracted to try to use ZTreeWin, even though I am using a dual pane manager as my daily driver, but there is some nostalgic force driving me to try and force myself onto ZTreeWin. I even bought the license for it more than 2 years ago, but still haven't touched it in any serious capacity. I mostly lack the convenience and speed by which I am able to accomplish tasks in my existing (dual panel) orthodox filemanager, and at the same time I am losing patience by learning every single thing in it from sratch. Does anyone know of a good learning resource for ZTreeWin?
- xdkyx 1y agoI used to install Windows Commander (later Total Commander) on every system I have used, so much so that I bought the Total Commander licence. However as time passes by I used it less and less, to the point that currently I run it once a month out of pure nostalgia.
- Perz1val 1y agoCheck out File Pilot
- unixhero 1y agoI still use it. Did you know it supports extensions? Such as being able to explore SQLite files and so on. A Polish team has put toghether as many extensions as possible into a self contained installer-distro for Total Commander. It is called Total Commander Ultima Prime. I enjoy it a lot. https://tcup.pl https://tcup.pl
- Ambix 1y agoStill my default tool to install on any remote server. My secret weapon :)
- jwr 1y agoMidnight commander is a great tool, although I think most younger users do not realize that we lost something along the way. Norton Commander was fantastically fast for common file operations not just because of the dual-pane design, but because of several things working together. Thoughtful design of software while thinking of hardware. To get the most out of it, you were supposed to use the numpad on your keyboard. And it should be the classic IBM PC numpad: large +, large 0, [num]/*- in the top row. Then, you wanted your function keys as a top row above your keyboard. Also, ESC was supposed to work immediately, not after a delay. I know many people think these things don't matter, because you can do everything with MC (and more), but I disagree. In this case, every fraction of a second matters. In the setup I described above, selecting all files in the current directory and moving them to the directory in the other pane is: one flick of the right hand (roll over + and Enter on the numpad), F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand. Now try to do that using the + that is on your = key and tell me it's the same thing.
- nottorp 1y agoStuff is still there as long as you get a proper keyboard. Well, and monitor. If you're slouching over your laptop for extended periods of time, you have bigger problems than not being able to use numpad +...
- eviks 1y ago> every fraction of a second matters That was not true otherwise you wouldn't get stuck with the most unergonomic keys mandating moving your hands off their resting place. > selecting all files ... : one flick of the right hand The common Ctrl+A is better, no flick, just shifting a single thumb > F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand Or still same single hand Ctrl+Shift+X (or something even easier like maybe X, X)
- arevno 1y ago> the most unergonomic keys mandating moving your hands off their resting place Touch typists always have to get their dig in. I've been using vim for 5 years now and still use up/dn/lf/rt - it's easier to find in a tactile manner with the right keyboard and makes MUCH more sense to the brain than hjkl. It's like 80ms travel, worst case. Even the gaming community got this more correct with wasd, in terms of key positions that make sense to the brain.
- pmkary 1y agoMiguel de Icaza Rocks So Hard. And whatever he makes rocks as much.
- atmosx 1y agoI use midnight commander to transfer files between my servers using FTP over VPN but supports multiple protocols. Great software, once you get familiar with the shortcuts there's nothing like it. Clean, simple and does the job. You can transfer in the background or foreground. It's a pretty complete tool.
- keyle 1y agoI grew up using Norton Commander. It had everything I needed including a decent editor! I'm not sure if midnight commander was a complete rewrite.
- unixhero 1y agoIt is a clean room imlementation and mostly feature complete with more modern support such as SFTP, UTF-8 and so on.
- w4rh4wk5 1y agoI've always found Midnight Commander to be underrated, perhaps because it "looks old". I still recommend checking it out if you want a terminal-based file manager. In case you do prefer GUIs, consider DoubleCommander.
- snvzz 1y agoWorker[0] is a mature double panel GUI file manager that's often overlooked. 0. http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/ http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/
- blks 1y agoFor MacOS, I love Marta file manager.
- neurostimulant 1y agoIt's not so bad once you change the skin to non-default ones. I like the yadt256 skin.
- jcc11 1y ago[dead]
- KaiserPro 1y agoI never understood the fervent love for midnight/norton commander. Its not like its a new phenomenon. I remember people raving about it in the late 90s too. is it nostalgia, or is it really that useful?
- oytis 1y agoMSDOS shell language was completely awful as I remember, so Norton Commander came in really handy.
- mrweasel 1y agoFor some people it's just how they work. I did consulting for a company, and the developer I sat next to on my visits used Total Commander of all things. It was probably the first thing he'd install on any new Windows machine. He never open Explorer, everything related to files was done within the confines of Total Commander. For those who got started with Norton Commander and moved to Linux/Unix from there, Midnight Commander is probably just the tool they are used to and it's completely ingrained in their workflows. Personally I really want to like Midnight Commander, well I do like it, I just don't use it that much. As someone else pointed out, the keyboard shortcuts just doesn't work for me for some reason. I think if you grew up using the F-keys a lot, then it probably makes total sense.
- KaiserPro 1y agoI can;t really argue with the force of habit. I've installed vim bindings to vscode, so I can see their point.
- bmn__ 1y agoLots of comments here review the (OFM) concept, not the particular implementation. I have plenty of criticism for MC, I wish it had the sufficient amount of features so that it becomes a better representative of its genre and I could start recommending it to other users. Krusader and Total Commander are lightyears ahead, try these first.
- graycrow 1y agoMC is a great file manager, but Far2l is even better.
- k__ 1y agoI fondly remember my first PC, which only had DOS. I came from C64 where I had GEOS, that allowed me to do anything with a nice GUI, so it felt like quite the step back. However, PCs were all the rage at that time, so I got one and thanks to Norton Commander, I was able to use it with a nice(+ish) GUI too.
- egorfine 1y agoI have been using Norton Commander from early versions. Then Volkov Commander. Somehow during my 30+ years *nix career I never truly and actually used mc. Seems like moving files around in shell is good enough.
- amelius 1y agoHow does it compare to Apple's Finder?
- lukaslalinsky 1y agoI used Norton Commander from the early DOS days. I've gone through many clones over the years. Eventually I was more OK with just using command line for moving files around, but I still find myself starting mc and moving things that way, because it's just so much easier. I'm so glad it still exists and is maintained.
- DoctorOW 1y agoWeird question, when you call yourself "GNU <NAME>" does that just mean GNU Public License, or is it more like "Apache <NAME>" where there's an organization attached?
- schoen 1y agoIt's supposed to be the latter (approval as part of the GNU Project).
- nvtop 1y agoI tried to love mc, but its ergonomics felt slightly off. Maybe it's just hard to rewire my Norton / Volkov Commander / FAR Manager muscle memory, I don't know I ended up being on a Linux fork of Far Manager, which works beautifully: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l https://github.com/elfmz/far2l
- rob74 1y agoWhile I use command line tools on Linux daily, using a console-based tool that pretends to be a GUI tool is a bridge too far, so I prefer GUI-based dual pane file managers like Double Commander or Krusader. Of course mc and far can be used over an SSH connection, so they have their advantages too...
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoMC needs a shakeup from its current maintenance mode, since many state-of-the-art features, especially around copying, should be added. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the last decade.
- ggaughan 1y agoIt uses F10 to quit so if you're in GNOME Terminal (e.g. Ubuntu) go to Terminal Preferences|General and uncheck "Enable the menu accelerator key (F10 by default)", or use Alt-0 to quit instead.
- protomikron 1y agoIt's an interesting file browser, the default "blue" colors gives old-school vibes nowadays. If you wonder how to quit (if started from a terminal): It's `ESC 0`. Or "exit" like from a shell. Took me some time I have to admit (q, ctrl-c, ctrl-q, F10, ESC all did not work).
- kidsil 1y agoF10 always worked for me, but some terminals use F10 for some other functionality. If that fails, you can click on "10 Quit" with the mouse (not ideal, but an immediate solution).
- protomikron 1y agoAh I see, thx, it's a pretty default configured "gnome-terminal", which probably captures the F10.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- candidtim 1y agoShameless plug: https://github.com/candidtim/f2-commander https://github.com/candidtim/f2-commander I've been working on "F2 Commander" on and off for a while now. At first, I wanted a TUI to view the contents of cloud storage buckets (GCS, S3, etc.), but it quickly evolved into an orthodox file manager. The funny thing is, the first version was in Common Lisp, but then I discovered Textual and was instantly sold on it - it's really fun to work with. The app scratches my itch, and although most of the time I myself prefer just using the regular command line, I open it up when I need to quickly navigate or move some files in a complex directory tree. [1] https://textual.textualize.io/ https://textual.textualize.io/
- bvrmn 1y agoI have fond memories for mc during my transition from Windows and trying to replace DOS Navigator and Far Manager with something similar. Started to use ranger a long ago though and never came back.
- Aspos 1y agoFar Manager works in Linux and Mac OS and works great.
- drillsteps5 1y agoWent through the same process but ended up with Far clone on Linux called far-2l. Wouldn't say it's great (I miss many plugins) but it's def good enough for me.
- MangoToupe 1y agoI'm a little surprised graphical file management is so popular. I use the command line for almost everything (ie using unix utilities to manage files), and I am a little mystified as to what people do with their computers such that file management is so time consuming it benefits from stuff like this.
- jbd0 1y agoI've been a mc user for many years, but lately I've been using dired in emacs. It's quite powerful and intuitive to me.
- thegreatursula 1y ago[dead]
- andyferris 1y agoI used to use XTree Gold, which was... golden. I always heard of Midnight Commander but never really got around to using it. I should probably fix that. What I never got was why this style of TUI (MS edit.com, qbasic, etc) isn't really carried through in modern tradition? I really enjoyed these when when I was younger... yet even textual or ratatui apps don't really bring this interface to the terminal. (Or why screen-coordinate-based terminals aren't the norm to base TUI apps upon... this aspect just seems "obvious" but in this aspect modern terminal emulates seem lightyears behind MS-DOS, of all things). Perhaps the rewrite of edit [1] will spawn a ressurgence of this TUI style? [1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-open-source/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-open-...
- jmclnx 1y agoSame here, back then I found a little known file manager called DM.COM. That was my # 1 goto in DOS for files. IMO, it is the best. You can do this to get information on how to download it: curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/repository/dm220.txt' > dm220.txt
- TomaszZielinski 1y agoYes, I also have fond memories of quite a few TUI apps for DOS. Not sure if it’s pure nostalgia, it might be. But then it feels like dark magic that you could have 40kB .COM or 100kB .EXE doing so many things and looking so nicely..
- glax 1y agoI used Far manager(https://www.farmanager.com/screenshots.php https://www.farmanager.com/screenshots.php) a lot back in the days, clone of norton commander. Got hooked to it, after joining the se-nse.net forum (https://www.facebook.com/sensedotnet https://www.facebook.com/sensedotnet). Sadly it's been disbanded now
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gclawes 1y agoSomething feels strange reading the docs for mc in Material for MKDocs
- hollowonepl 1y agowhat's new about it? or is it just a reminder that `mc` still exists?
- dim13 1y ago… since 1994
- hollowonepl 1y agoThat’s what I know since 1994 as well. thus surprised it’s published here with landing page only and no specific news. Unless I missed one? Is there some 31 years celebration or sth? :)
- kayo_20211030 1y agoGreatest tool ever!
- qiine 1y agoalways have it just in case, but its hard to beat dolphin breadth of features. also I use oil+fzf-lua more and more lately.
- wmlive 1y agoI'd wish there was a Midnight Commander available for Android that would allow for being used during an adb shell or ssh session. Ghost Commander doesn't cover that use case, sadly.
- esafak 1y agoIf you're stuck on Windows I recommend xplorer². https://www.zabkat.com/ https://www.zabkat.com/
- insane_dreamer 1y agoBeen using MC for over 20 years (and NC before it). Still haven't found a better file manager (GUI or TUI), and I've tried many. I even use it on my Mac. I use it for SCP and S3 file management too (first mounting the folder using sshfs or goofys).
- iLemming 1y agoThose who still remember Norton and Far Commanders, can you recall this favorite song of yours, once even featured in "Madagascar"? <F6><Tab>, <F6><Tab> I like to move it, move it! <F6><Tab>, <F6><Tab> Move it!
- yzzyx 1y agoI love mc, and mcedit is still my text editor of choice 99% of the time!
- dwaaa 1y agoI need: * grubvox colors ;) * half vertical size of screen (similar norton commander) I can type instructions and see output * default change directory when leave a 'mc'. * better way to change default program (for example image)
- xyzelement 1y agoAnytime I see this stuff, I get nostalgic for Norton Commander (it was HUGE in the USSR when I was a kid learning computers in the late 80s and early 90s) But somehow the reality of how I - and I think most people - use computers today is very different. I don't find myself navigating a shallow directory hierarchy and making file operations too often. A part of it is that all the stuff is in the cloud or at least connected to applications (eg: I am more likely to navigate my coding projects from an IDE than from Shell/MC) And when I administer eg my home linux system, it seems more likely that I jump to a random far-away directory or edit a specific file, rather than navigating the filesystem MC stye. I am curious how people are using computers today that MC-like interface is still most suitable.
- forgotmypw17 1y agoI use Total Commander on Windows all the time. It is much better than Explorer at so many things, such as: - Actually letting you navigate the directory structure. - Making WSL volumes easy to work with. - Keyboard accessibility. - Dealing with many tabs and bookmarks. - A stable interface that doesn't randomly change without my consent. - Many other things I'll omit for time reasons.
- HackerThemAll 1y ago- Multi-rename tool. - Synchronize directories (symmetric and asymmetric, with subdirectories). - Background operations. - Operation queue (so that you don't thrash disks while doing many operations). - Start menu. - Displaying directory sizes easily. - Great file search. - Diff viewer for text files. - F3 quick file viewer. - Compare directories. - Plugins. Those are my favorites.
- 0x457 1y agoI remember a time when FAR was one of the first things I install on Windows.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoOn windows I use mc to navigate around the WSL-2 file system. On linux I use it to manage remote servers without a window manager (by design, because I don't need one). I also use it to pass files between my laptops over ssh, between windows and/or linux.
- 29athrowaway 1y agoOver the years, I went from mc to ranger to nnn to lf to yazi.
- vzaliva 1y agoTell me you are from USSR without telling me :) Also tell me you are super-conservative, clinging to ossifed replica of a tool from 1986. P.S. Compare to some other tools from old times, e.g. `vi`. It was wastly modernized as `vim` and still actively developed with new features added.
- wduquette 1y agoI'm sure it has evolved, but Midnight Command began as a recreation of Norton Commander for DOS PCs. I've not used Midnight Commander in particular, but back in my DOS programming days Norton Commander was my best friend.
- shirro 1y agoI still often go to mc over a gui file manager whenever I am doing something isn't straightforward to capture with a regular command. Like moving a group of files that isn't related by name, date, size etc. There are more linux-like text file managers that have vim bindings etc and are probably a better choice for the terminal crowd now but I have had mc installed on my machines since the mid 90s when emulating a dos file manager made a lot more sense.
- anbardoi 1y agoI have been using ‘yazi’ for a few months and I love it
- ZoomZoomZoom 1y agoGNU MC is indispensable. Some basic features it has still like a file overwrite strategy prompt is absent from many modern file managers of the day like yazi. One of the most overlooked features is a custom user menu[1]. It allows greatly expanding MC's capabilities with custom actions and integrate it into specific workflows. No plugins or DSLs, just a `sh` calling whatever you like. For example, I have a couple keybinds for transferring selected files/directories over rsync while browsing the remote directory over sftp. You can easily adapt it to do the same for directories mounted remotely with sshfs/rclone mount. Another action that I like to add (this one I actually use in Double Commander on my GUI workstation) is to automatically convert transferred files on the fly, like compress media with ffmpeg (WAV to FLAC, * to OPUS, etc). [1]: https://source.midnight-commander.org/man/mc.html#Edit_Menu_File https://source.midnight-commander.org/man/mc.html#Edit_Menu_...