XeFM — a dual-pane file manager for the desktop and the terminal

XeFM — short for Xenolith File Manager — is a powerful file manager that runs as a native desktop application on Windows and macOS, and in the terminal on all platforms — Windows, macOS, and Linux. Navigate your filesystem with keyboard shortcuts in a clean, intuitive dual-pane interface with comprehensive file operations, rich built-in viewers, themeable visual effects, and professional-grade features.

Key Features

• Cross-platform - Native desktop app on Windows and macOS; terminal (TUI) app on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Dual-pane interface with independent navigation and cross-pane operations
• Archive browsing - Navigate ZIP, TAR, and compressed archives as virtual directories
• SFTP support - Browse and manage remote servers via SSH with optimized performance
• AWS S3 support for cloud storage operations
• Advanced search with real-time filtering, background processing, and multi-selection bulk operations
• Rich built-in viewers - Syntax-highlighted text, images, Markdown, JSON, and CSV/TSV
• Themes & visual effects - A dozen built-in themes; desktop mode adds GPU background animations, CRT/phosphor screen effects, and text-reveal animations
• Customizable - Fully configurable key bindings, settings, and external program launchers

Quick Start

Installation

Pick the install that matches how you want to run XeFM:

The desktop and terminal apps coexist and share their settings in ~/.xefm/ — installing both is a perfectly normal setup.

Desktop app (Windows, macOS)

The desktop packages bundle their own Python, so there is nothing else to install.

Windows — install from the Microsoft Store, or run winget install --id 9PK2X44W810V --source msstore: XeFM lands in the Start menu, updates automatically, and uninstalls from Settings → Apps. An unsigned portable zip also ships with every release; it needs unblocking once.

macOS — download XeFM-<version>-macos.dmg from the latest release, drag XeFM to Applications, and launch it from Launchpad or Spotlight. It is signed with the author’s Apple Developer ID; full install details, including Gatekeeper notes, are in the Desktop Mode Guide.

Use the package, not xefm --backend gui — that path is for developing XeFM, not for using it: the Dock / taskbar icon and, on macOS, the file permissions get attributed to Python / your terminal instead of to XeFM. See Why not xefm --backend gui?.

Terminal app (Windows, macOS, Linux)

XeFM is on PyPI. Install it as a tool and run it — no checkout and no virtualenv to manage:

pipx install xefm     # or:  uv tool install xefm,  or:  pip install xefm
xefm

pipx and uv keep XeFM in its own environment while putting the xefm command on your PATH; uvx xefm tries it once without installing anything. Python 3.10+ is the only prerequisite, and this is the only install available on Linux — the one for SSH sessions, remote servers, and terminal-centric workflows.

Upgrade with the same tool you installed with (pipx upgrade xefm, uv tool upgrade xefm, or pip install --upgrade xefm) — they are not interchangeable. Details and fixes for common install errors are in the User Guide.

From source

Working on XeFM itself? Use a checkout instead:

git clone https://github.com/crftwr/xefm.git
cd xefm
make venv        # creates .venv with every dependency
make run         # launch XeFM through it, no activation needed

make help lists the rest — editable install, PuiKit co-development, and the macOS / Windows app bundles.

Essential Controls

• Navigate: ↑↓ to move up/down, ←→ to switch panes/navigate directories
• Select: Space to select/deselect files, A for all files, Shift-A for all items
• File operations: C (copy), M (move), K (delete), R (rename)
• Search: F for incremental search, Shift-F for filename search, Shift-G for content search
• Remote paths: open ssh://hostname/path or s3://bucket/path like any directory
• Help: ? opens the help dialog with every key binding organized by category — no need to memorize
• Quit: Q to exit

Documentation

User Documentation

• Complete User Guide - Comprehensive guide covering all features, configuration, and usage
• Configuration - Complete configuration reference and customization guide
• Desktop Mode - Native Windows / macOS desktop app setup and options
• Color Schemes & Visual Effects - Themes, themeable GPU background scenes, and screen effects
• Image Viewer, Markdown Viewer & JSON / CSV Viewers - Built-in viewers
• Diff Viewer & Batch Rename - File / directory diffs and regex-based multi-file renaming
• SFTP Support - Remote server access via SSH with file operations and search
• AWS S3 Support - Cloud storage integration and S3 bucket management
• Archives - Create, extract, and browse archives as directories
• Search Animation - Advanced search features and visual feedback

Developer Documentation

• Project Structure - Repository layout and where things live
• Path Polymorphism System - Storage-agnostic architecture and extensibility
• Navigation System - Core navigation implementation
• External Programs - Program integration system

Archive Virtual Directory Browsing

Press Enter on an archive file (.zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz) to browse it as if it were a regular directory — no extraction needed. Navigate nested directories, view files, search by name or content, and copy files out with the normal copy key; Backspace leaves the archive. P creates a new archive, U extracts one. See the Archive Feature Guide.

Built-in File Viewers

Press V (or Enter) to view the selected file. XeFM picks the right viewer for the file type: syntax-highlighted text (20+ formats, line numbers, wrapping, in-file search), images with zoom / pan (inline in iTerm2 / kitty / sixel terminals and in desktop mode), and rendered views for Markdown, JSON, and CSV/TSV (M toggles rendered / raw). All viewers work on local files, inside archives, and on remote SFTP / S3 paths without extraction or download.

Markdown	JSON / JSONL	CSV / TSV
Rendered headings, lists, code, and links	Collapsible, syntax-colored tree (.json, .jsonl, .ndjson)	Column-aligned table grid (.csv, .tsv)

Themes & Visual Effects

XeFM ships a dozen built-in themes. Press T to cycle to the next theme, or pick one from the View → Theme menu — your choice is remembered across restarts. Define your own in ~/.xefm/config.py and they appear in the picker alongside the built-ins.

Dark+	Monokai	Dracula
Nord	Solarized	Gruvbox Dark
Light+	Solarized Light	Sci-Fi
Cyber	Segment LCD	Shinagawa

In desktop mode a theme can also carry visual effects the GPU renders behind and over the interface: background animations (starfield, rain, hologram, …), CRT / phosphor screen post-effects, text-reveal animations, and translucent surfaces. Effects are pure theme data — a custom theme can mix and match them, and terminal mode ignores them. See Color Schemes & Visual Effects.

Sub-shell Mode

Press Shift-X to temporarily suspend XeFM and enter a shell whose environment describes the current panes and selection (XEFM_LEFT_DIR, XEFM_THIS_DIR, XEFM_LEFT_SELECTED, …); type exit to return to XeFM. The full variable list is in the User Guide.

Command Line Options

These apply to the terminal install and to source checkouts (where every command also works as python3 -m xefm …); the desktop packages take no arguments.

xefm                                    # terminal mode (the default)
xefm --left /path/a --right /path/b     # startup directories
xefm --backend gui                      # desktop window — development path only

The full flag set is --backend {tui,curses,gui,macos,windows}, --left DIR, --right DIR, --version, and --help. Backend details are in the Desktop Mode Guide.

Configuration

XeFM is highly configurable through ~/.xefm/config.py — themes and visual effects, key bindings, external programs and file associations, favorite directories, and behavior settings. Open the settings menu with Shift-Z (Z opens view options), or edit the file directly. See the Configuration Feature Guide.

Troubleshooting

• “Windows protected your PC” when launching the portable XeFM.exe — the zip is not code-signed; click More info → Run anyway, or unblock the zip before extracting. The Microsoft Store install is signed and never shows this prompt
• “XeFM cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified” on macOS — right-click XeFM.app in Applications and choose Open, then confirm once
• Install problems (command not found, externally-managed-environment, upgrade errors) — see Installation troubleshooting

More in the User Guide and the Desktop Mode Guide.

Contact & Support

• GitHub Issues: Report bugs or request features
• Microsoft Store: XeFM on the Store — the Windows desktop app
• PyPI: pypi.org/project/xefm — released versions (pipx install xefm)
• Author’s X (Twitter): @crftwr

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.