Midnight Commander cheatsheet

midnight_commander.md

Midnight Commander

In the shortcuts below, "C" stands for CTRL and "A" stands for "ALT". This was the convention used in Midnight Commander documentation.

Main View

File/directory operations

• F3 View file
• Shift + F3 View raw file (disregard extension)
• F5 Copy selected files
• F6 Move selected files
• Shift-F4 Create a new file
• C-x d Compare directories
• C-x c Chmod dialog
• C-x o Chown dialog
• C-x C-s Edit symlink
• C-x s Create symlink dialog
• C-x l Create hard link dialog
• C-x v Run relative symbolic link tool on selected or tagged items

Selection

• Insert / C-t Select/deselect file
• * Invert selection on files
• + Specify file selection options (including custom pattern)
• - The same as above, but for deselecting

Navigation

• TAB Jump from one panel to the other
• A-c Quick cd dialog
• A-? Search dialog
• C-s Search for item
• A-s Incremental search (A-s again to jump to next occurence)
• A-y Move to the previous directory in the directory history
• A-u Move to the next directory in the directory history
• A-Shift-h Show path history
• C-\ Directory Hotlist
• C-p / Up Arrow Move selection bar to the previous entry in the panel
• C-n / Down Arrow Move selection bar to the next entry in the panel
• A-v / Page Up Move selection bar one page up
• A-j / Page down Move selection bar one page down
• A-< / Home Move selection bar to the top (first entry)
• A-> / End Move selection bar to the bottom (last entry)

Display

• C-r Refresh current panel
• C-u Swap panels
• A-, Toggle panel layout (horizontal/vertical)
• C-x i Toggle other panel to information mode
• C-x q Toggle other panel to quick view mode
• A-i Make the other panel show the same directory as the current
• A-o Display the contents of the highlighted dir in the other panel
• A-t Change panel view (full, brief, long)
• A-. Toggle "Show Hidden Files" feature

Command prompt

• C-o Drop to the console
• A-Enter Put the name of the highlighted file on command line
• C-x t Put the name of the selected items on command line
• C-Shift-Enter Put the full path of the highlighted file on command line
• A-a / C-x p Put the full path of the pane directory on the command line
• A-h Show command history
• A-n / A-p Navigate up/down through the command history
• C-x ! External Panelize (fill current panel with the output of a command)
• C-x j Show background jobs
• F2-@ Run a command on the currently highlighted item, e.g.:
  • F2-@ unzip Unzip selected file
  • F2-@ zip -r foo.zip Zip current directory as foo.zip
  • F2-@ 7za x Extract selected file with 7zip
  • F2-@ 7za a foo.7z 7zip current directory as foo.7z

Others

• Shift-F10 Quiet exit, without confirmation

File View

• C-f View the next file
• C-b View the previous file