Dired

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Usage

Dired has countless functionality. The best way to learn it is to try it out. Open a dired buffer and look at the commands listed in the menus.

[C-x d] (or M-x dired)
ask for a directory and puts you into a buffer with direct listing of that directory.
[C-x C-j] (or M-x dired-jump)
jump to a dired buffer corresponding to the current buffer (This require loading Dired Extra).

In the minibuffer, while doing 'Find File':

[C-d]
jump to a dired buffer corresponding to the directory in the minibuffer.

Basic commands

[ RET]
Open the file/Directory. You can use a to open the directory without creating another buffer.
[ q]
Close the dir
[ i]
i: open directory in subtree. Use ^ to go up one level. With a prefix argument (C-u i), you can edit the ls switches used for the listing. So you can add R to expand the whole tree starting at this subdirectory.
[C]
Copy file

If you set (setq dired-dwim-target t), split your window and open another dired buffer on the other window, Dired will suggest it as the default target directory for the copy and rename commands.

[R]
Rename file
[D]
Delete file
[+]
create a new dir

Mark/unmark files

[m]

mark a file

[u]

unmark a file

[U]

unmark all marked

[%m]

mark by pattern

Edit filenames and permissions

Wdired mode (writable dired) allows you to enter a mode where you can edit filenames, symbolic link target and filenames permissions as you would in a regular buffer. It is particularly great to do some editing based on search and replace.

[C-x C-q]

enter wdired mode (calls wdired-change-to-wdired-mode). Type C-c C-c to validate your changes or C-c ESC to abort.

M-x customize-group RET wdired to customize wdired behavior.

Note: in Dired, you can rename a single file or move the marked ones with R.


Sort files

By default, typing s will toggle sorting by date. You can change the listing switches (of GNU ls) with C-u s.

You can customize the variable dired-listing-switches. For example,

   (setq dired-listing-switches "-aBhl --group-directories-first")

will display directories first. You can then customize per-directory local variables.


Dired+ (see below) offers more options (sort by size, by extension,…) and will add a menu entry.

Find files recursively

find-name-dired

With M-x find-name-dired, you'll be asked for the base directory, a file wildcard and the matching files will be displayed in a Dired buffer. It uses the find GNU utility.

Similar commands are find-grep-dired or find-dired. More information can be read in the documentation.

Interactive selection with Projectile

Projectile, coupled with M-x helm-projectile, lets you find recursively and interactively files in your project. This command does not use a Dired buffer.


View image thumbnails

Viewing images is a builtin feature of Dired (press Enter or v on an image file). On Emacs24.4, pressing n and p will show the next or previous image file. But if you want to navigate between image thumbnails, use the (builtin too) image-dired. You can directly call it with M-x image-dired, or mark the images you want to look at in the dired buffer (with m) and then type C-t d (image-dired-display-thumbs).

Tag images

More advanced features include image tags, which are metadata used to categorize image files. The tags are stored in a plain text file configured by image-dired-db-file.

To tag image files, mark them in the dired buffer and type C-t t (image-dired-tag-files). This reads the tag name in the minibuffer.

To mark files having a certain tag, type C-t f (image-dired-mark-tagged-files). After marking image files with a certain tag, you can use C-t d to view them.

You can also tag a file directly from the thumbnail buffer by typing t t and you can remove a tag by typing t r.

There is also a special “tag” called “comment” for each file (it is not a tag in the exact same sense as the other tags, it is handled slightly different). That is used to enter a comment or description about the image. You comment a file from the thumbnail buffer by typing c. You will be prompted for a comment. Type C-t c to add a comment from Dired (image-dired-dired-comment-files).

Rotate images

Image-Dired also provides simple image manipulation. In the thumbnail buffer, type L to rotate the original image 90 degrees anti clockwise, and R to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. This rotation is lossless, and uses an external utility called JpegTRAN.

See Also

Dired+ - a package that extends the functionalities of Dired

Direx - a general purpose directory/tree explorer

Dired-details - a library to make file details hide-able

dired-subtree - insert the subdirectory (with the i key) directly below its line

Speed_bar - navigate files and sources in another frame

emacs-nav - a simple files and sources browser popup

dirtree - a directory tree view panel

peep-dired - file previews à la ranger

Ranger is a file browser for the terminal that has a nice navigation system composed of three panes: the current directory at the middle, the previous one to the left, and a preview of the file the cursor is on to the right. Peep-dired mimics a handy two-panes navigation with instant preview. Sorry, but what has this to do with emacs and dired? For a kick off, its key-binding are vi!