---
title: "Terminal: Yazi"
description: "Notice: This is a little \"terminal treat\" – a short tip rather than a whole article. Enjoy!"
date: 2025-04-27
canonical_url: "https://christofersandin.com/texts/terminal-yazi"
section: "Texts"
---

#  Terminal: Yazi 

**Notice: This is a little "terminal treat" – a short tip rather than a whole article. Enjoy!**

***Yazi* is a Terminal-based file manager. It also has a few *Vim*-related key maps so it kind of fits into my little mini-series of articles around the Term.**

It has a column of files and folders on the left, a list of the files and folders in the current path in the middle, and a preview of the file on the right-hand side.

It also has support for Vim key bindings, which makes it quite intuitive to navigate if you have spent some time in Vim or *Neovim*. You use `y` to yank (copy) a file, you use `p` to paste, etc.

## Install

Install all dependencies and [Yazi](https://yazi-rs.github.io/) with [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/):

```shell
brew install yazi ffmpeg sevenzip jq poppler fd ripgrep fzf zoxide imagemagick font-symbols-only-nerd-font

```

Or, if you want to run the latest development build instead:

```shell
brew install yazi --HEAD

```

## Default configuration files

Copy and paste these files to your own configuration and change the things you like.

- `~/.config/yazi/`[theme.toml](https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/blob/shipped/yazi-config/preset/theme-dark.toml)
- `~/.config/yazi/`[keymap.toml](https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/blob/shipped/yazi-config/preset/keymap-default.toml)
- `~/.config/yazi/`[yazi.toml](https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/blob/shipped/yazi-config/preset/yazi-default.toml)

## Plugins

- The [mactag.yazi](https://github.com/yazi-rs/plugins/tree/main/mactag.yazi) plugin enables the Mac’s tagging feature in Yazi
- The [jump-to-char.yazi](https://github.com/yazi-rs/plugins/tree/main/jump-to-char.yazi) plugin enables an ‘f’ command to jump to the next file that starts with a specific character.

## Use Yazi as a Tmux popup

When using [Tmux](/texts/terminal-tmux), you can use Yazi in a "popup". This means we can bind a shortcut (I have Tmux `<Prefix>` + `Ctrl` + `y` for Yazi), which gives me an easy-to-reach file explorer in all situations.

You can do this in your `.tmux.conf` file.

```
bind C-y display-popup \
  -d "#{pane_current_path}" \
  -w 75% \
  -h 75% \
  -E "yazi"

```

---

## Resources

- [Yazi is the Terminal-based File Manager I Didn’t Know I Needed](https://itsfoss.com/yazi/) by It’s FOSS
- [Setting up the Yazi file manager](https://www.markpitblado.me/blog/setting-up-the-yazi-file-manager/) by Mark Pitblado
- [awesome-yazi](https://github.com/AnirudhG07/awesome-yazi) – a curated list of Yazi plugins, flavors, and themes

---

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