A fast, feature-rich terminal file manager written in Rust. Two-pane layout with syntax-highlighted previews, inline image display, archive browsing, SSH remote access, async file operations, OpenAI integration, and comprehensive undo. Feature clone of RTFM.

Built on crust (TUI) and glow (images). Single binary, ~3.6MB, ~50ms startup.

# Download from releases (Linux/macOS, x86_64/aarch64)
# Or build from source:
git clone https://github.com/isene/pointer
cd pointer
cargo build --release

# Run
./target/release/pointer

# Start in specific directory
pointer ~/Documents

# Use as file picker
pointer --pick=/tmp/selected.txt

Press ? for built-in help. Press q to quit (saves state).

Directory browsing	File preview with bat
Image preview

• Two-pane layout with configurable width ratio and border styles
• LS_COLORS support for consistent terminal theming
• Syntax highlighting via bat/batcat
• Image preview via kitty/sixel/w3m protocols (using glow)
• Archive browsing (zip, tar, gz, bz2, xz, rar, 7z as virtual directories)
• SSH/SFTP remote browsing (Ctrl-E)
• Async file operations with progress for large copy/move
• Comprehensive undo (delete, move, rename, copy, symlink, permissions, bulk rename)
• Trash system with toggle and browser
• Tab management (create, close, switch, duplicate, rename)
• Bookmarks with instant single-key jump
• Search (filename), grep (content), filter (extension/regex)
• fzf and navi integration
• locate with jump-to-result
• Bulk rename (regex, case conversion, extension change, prefix/suffix)
• File comparison (diff between two tagged files)
• Git status display
• Directory hashing (SHA1 change detection)
• OpenAI integration (file description, interactive chat)
• Plugin system (JSON manifests, external commands)
• Script evaluator (@ mode with full context via env vars)
• Top bar color matching (path-based, like RTFM's @topmatch)
• File picker mode (--pick=/path for external tool integration)
• Scrolloff (3-line margin) and wrap-around navigation

Config: ~/.pointer/conf.json (auto-created on first run) State: ~/.pointer/state.json (marks, history, recent files) Trash: ~/.pointer/trash/ Plugins: ~/.pointer/plugins/

{
  "width": 4,
  "border": 2,
  "preview": true,
  "trash": true,
  "bat": true,
  "show_hidden": false,
  "long_format": false,
  "sort_mode": "name",
  "sort_invert": false,
  "interactive": ["vim", "less", "top", "htop", "fzf", "navi"],
  "c_top_fg": 0, "c_top_bg": 249,
  "c_status_fg": 252, "c_status_bg": 236,
  "topmatch": [["PassionFruit", 171], ["Dualog", 72], ["", 249]],
  "ai_key": "",
  "ai_model": "gpt-4o-mini"
}

Press @ to run a shell command with pointer context as environment variables:

Scripts can control pointer via stderr directives: cd:/path, select:filename, status:message.

Plugins are JSON manifests in ~/.pointer/plugins/:

{
  "name": "My Plugin",
  "description": "Does something useful",
  "key": "F5",
  "command": "my-script.sh"
}

Commands receive POINTER_CONTEXT env var with JSON state.

Build: Rust toolchain (cargo)

Runtime (optional, for full features):

• bat or batcat for syntax highlighting
• fzf for fuzzy finding
• ImageMagick (convert, identify) for image preview
• pdftotext for PDF preview
• git for git status
• xclip for clipboard (also uses OSC 52)
• locate for file search
• navi for cheatsheets
• curl for AI integration

Unlicense - public domain.

Created by Geir Isene (https://isene.org) with extensive pair-programming with Claude Code.