Effortless File Management with Dired

• C-x d or C-x C-f - dired
• dired-jump - open Dired buffer, select the current file
• projectile-dired

Emacs / Evil

• n / j - next line
• p / k - previous line
• j / J - jump to file in buffer
• RET - select file or directory
• ^ - go to parent directory
• S-RET / g O - Open file in “other” window
• M-RET - Show file in other window without focusing (previewing files)
• g o (dired-view-file) - Open file but in a “preview” mode, close with q

• dired-listing-switches: Try -agho --group-directories-first

• g / g r Refresh the buffer with revert-buffer after changing configuration (and after filesystem changes!)

  (use-package dired
    :ensure nil
    :commands (dired dired-jump)
    :bind (("C-x C-j" . dired-jump))
    :config
    (evil-collection-define-key 'normal 'dired-mode-map
      "h" 'dired-up-directory
      "l" 'dired-find-file))

• m - Marks a file
• u - Unmarks a file
• U - Unmarks all files in buffer
• * t / t - Inverts marked files in buffer
• % m - Mark files in buffer using regular expression
• * - Lots of other auto-marking functions
• k / K - “Kill” marked items (refresh buffer with g / g r to get them back)
• Many operations can be done on a single file if there are no active marks!

• C - Copy marked files (or if no files are marked, the current file)
• Copying single and multiple files
• U - Unmark all files in buffer
• R - Rename marked files, renaming multiple is a move!
• % R - Rename based on regular expression: ^test , old-\&

• D - Delete marked file
• d - Mark file for deletion
• x - Execute deletion for marks
• delete-by-moving-to-trash - Move to trash instead of deleting permanently

• Z - Compress or uncompress a file or folder to (.tar.gz)
• c - Compress selection to a specific file
• dired-compress-files-alist - Bind compression commands to file extension

• T - Touch (change timestamp)
• M - Change file mode
• O - Change file owner
• G - Change file group
• S - Create a symbolic link to this file
• L - Load an Emacs Lisp file into Emacs

Closed Dired buffers are just buried! They need to be refreshed if you go back to them.

Use dired-single to help with this!

;; Inside `use-package dired`
(use-package dired-single)

    (evil-collection-define-key 'normal 'dired-mode-map
      "h" 'dired-single-up-directory
      "l" 'dired-single-buffer))

(use-package all-the-icons-dired
  :hook (dired-mode . all-the-icons-dired-mode))

• ! or & to launch an external program on a file

(use-package dired-open
  :config
  ;; Doesn't work as expected!
  (add-to-list 'dired-open-functions #'dired-open-xdg t)
  ;; -- OR! --
  (setq dired-open-extensions '(("png" . "feh")
                                ("mkv" . "mpv"))))

(use-package dired-hide-dotfiles
  :hook (dired-mode . dired-hide-dotfiles-mode)
  :config
  (evil-collection-define-key 'normal 'dired-mode-map
    "H" 'dired-hide-dotfiles-mode))