fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.

Pros

• No dependencies
• Blazingly fast
• The most comprehensive feature set
• Flexible layout using tmux panes
• Batteries included
  • Vim/Neovim plugin, key bindings and fuzzy auto-completion

Installation

fzf project consists of the following components:

• fzf executable
• fzf-tmux script for launching fzf in a tmux pane
• Shell extensions
  • Key bindings (CTRL-T, CTRL-R, and ALT-C) (bash, zsh, fish)
  • Fuzzy auto-completion (bash, zsh)
• Vim/Neovim plugin

You can download fzf executable alone if you don't need the extra stuff.

Using git

Clone this repository and run install script.

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
~/.fzf/install

Using Homebrew

On OS X, you can use Homebrew to install fzf.

brew install fzf

# Install shell extensions
/usr/local/opt/fzf/install

Vim plugin

You can manually add the directory to &runtimepath as follows,

" If installed using git
set rtp+=~/.fzf

" If installed using Homebrew
set rtp+=/usr/local/opt/fzf

But it's recommended that you use a plugin manager like vim-plug.

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'dir': '~/.fzf', 'do': './install --all' }

Upgrading fzf

fzf is being actively developed and you might want to upgrade it once in a while. Please follow the instruction below depending on the installation method used.

• git: cd ~/.fzf && git pull && ./install
• brew: brew update; brew reinstall fzf
• vim-plug: :PlugUpdate fzf

Usage

fzf will launch curses-based finder, read the list from STDIN, and write the selected item to STDOUT.

find * -type f | fzf > selected

Without STDIN pipe, fzf will use find command to fetch the list of files excluding hidden ones. (You can override the default command with FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND)

vim $(fzf)

Using the finder

• CTRL-J / CTRL-K (or CTRL-N / CTRL-P) to move cursor up and down
• Enter key to select the item, CTRL-C / CTRL-G / ESC to exit
• On multi-select mode (-m), TAB and Shift-TAB to mark multiple items
• Emacs style key bindings
• Mouse: scroll, click, double-click; shift-click and shift-scroll on multi-select mode

Search syntax

Unless otherwise specified, fzf starts in "extended-search mode" where you can type in multiple search terms delimited by spaces. e.g. ^music .mp3$ sbtrkt !fire

Token	Match type	Description
sbtrkt	fuzzy-match	Items that match sbtrkt
^music	prefix-exact-match	Items that start with music
.mp3$	suffix-exact-match	Items that end with .mp3
'wild	exact-match (quoted)	Items that include wild
!fire	inverse-exact-match	Items that do not include fire
!.mp3$	inverse-suffix-exact-match	Items that do not end with .mp3

If you don't prefer fuzzy matching and do not wish to "quote" every word, start fzf with -e or --exact option. Note that when --exact is set, '-prefix "unquotes" the term.

A single bar character term acts as an OR operator. For example, the following query matches entries that start with core and end with either go, rb, or py.

^core go$ | rb$ | py$

Environment variables

• FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND
  • Default command to use when input is tty
  • e.g. export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='ag -g ""'
• FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
  • Default options
  • e.g. export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--reverse --inline-info"

Examples

Many useful examples can be found on the wiki page. Feel free to add your own as well.

fzf-tmux script

fzf-tmux is a bash script that opens fzf in a tmux pane.

# usage: fzf-tmux [-u|-d [HEIGHT[%]]] [-l|-r [WIDTH[%]]] [--] [FZF OPTIONS]
#        (-[udlr]: up/down/left/right)

# select git branches in horizontal split below (15 lines)
git branch | fzf-tmux -d 15

# select multiple words in vertical split on the left (20% of screen width)
cat /usr/share/dict/words | fzf-tmux -l 20% --multi --reverse

It will still work even when you're not on tmux, silently ignoring -[udlr] options, so you can invariably use fzf-tmux in your scripts.

Key bindings for command line

The install script will setup the following key bindings for bash, zsh, and fish.

• CTRL-T - Paste the selected files and directories onto the command line
  • Set FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND to override the default command
  • Set FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS to pass additional options
• CTRL-R - Paste the selected command from history onto the command line
  • Sort is disabled by default to respect chronological ordering
  • Press CTRL-R again to toggle sort
  • Set FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS to pass additional options
• ALT-C - cd into the selected directory
  • Set FZF_ALT_C_COMMAND to override the default command
  • Set FZF_ALT_C_OPTS to pass additional options

If you're on a tmux session, fzf will start in a split pane. You may disable this tmux integration by setting FZF_TMUX to 0, or change the height of the pane with FZF_TMUX_HEIGHT (e.g. 20, 50%).

If you use vi mode on bash, you need to add set -o vi before source ~/.fzf.bash in your .bashrc, so that it correctly sets up key bindings for vi mode.

Fuzzy completion for bash and zsh

Files and directories

Fuzzy completion for files and directories can be triggered if the word before the cursor ends with the trigger sequence which is by default **.

• COMMAND [DIRECTORY/][FUZZY_PATTERN]**<TAB>

# Files under current directory
# - You can select multiple items with TAB key
vim **<TAB>

# Files under parent directory
vim ../**<TAB>

# Files under parent directory that match `fzf`
vim ../fzf**<TAB>

# Files under your home directory
vim ~/**<TAB>


# Directories under current directory (single-selection)
cd **<TAB>

# Directories under ~/github that match `fzf`
cd ~/github/fzf**<TAB>

Process IDs

Fuzzy completion for PIDs is provided for kill command. In this case there is no trigger sequence, just press tab key after kill command.

# Can select multiple processes with <TAB> or <Shift-TAB> keys
kill -9 <TAB>

Host names

For ssh and telnet commands, fuzzy completion for host names is provided. The names are extracted from /etc/hosts and ~/.ssh/config.

ssh **<TAB>
telnet **<TAB>

Environment variables / Aliases

unset **<TAB>
export **<TAB>
unalias **<TAB>

Settings

# Use ~~ as the trigger sequence instead of the default **
export FZF_COMPLETION_TRIGGER='~~'

# Options to fzf command
export FZF_COMPLETION_OPTS='+c -x'

# Use ag instead of the default find command for listing candidates.
# - The first argument to the function is the base path to start traversal
# - Note that ag only lists files not directories
# - See the source code (completion.{bash,zsh}) for the details.
_fzf_compgen_path() {
  ag -g "" "$1"
}

Supported commands

On bash, fuzzy completion is enabled only for a predefined set of commands (complete | grep _fzf to see the list). But you can enable it for other commands as well like follows.

# There are also _fzf_path_completion and _fzf_dir_completion
complete -F _fzf_file_completion -o default -o bashdefault doge

Usage as Vim plugin

This repository only enables basic integration with Vim. If you're looking for more, check out fzf.vim project.

(Note: To use fzf in GVim, an external terminal emulator is required.)

:FZF[!]

If you have set up fzf for Vim, :FZF command will be added.

" Look for files under current directory
:FZF

" Look for files under your home directory
:FZF ~

" With options
:FZF --no-sort --reverse --inline-info /tmp

" Bang version starts in fullscreen instead of using tmux pane or Neovim split
:FZF!

Similarly to ctrlp.vim, use enter key, CTRL-T, CTRL-X or CTRL-V to open selected files in the current window, in new tabs, in horizontal splits, or in vertical splits respectively.

Note that the environment variables FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND and FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS also apply here. Refer to the wiki page for customization.

fzf#run

For more advanced uses, you can use fzf#run([options]) function with the following options.

Option name	Type	Description
source	string	External command to generate input to fzf (e.g. find .)
source	list	Vim list as input to fzf
sink	string	Vim command to handle the selected item (e.g. e, tabe)
sink	funcref	Reference to function to process each selected item
sink*	funcref	Similar to sink, but takes the list of output lines at once
options	string	Options to fzf
dir	string	Working directory
up/down/left/right	number/string	Use tmux pane with the given size (e.g. 20, 50%)
window (Neovim only)	string	Command to open fzf window (e.g. vertical aboveleft 30new)
launcher	string	External terminal emulator to start fzf with (GVim only)
launcher	funcref	Function for generating launcher string (GVim only)

Examples can be found on the wiki page.

fzf#wrap

fzf#wrap([name string,] [opts dict,] [fullscreen boolean]) is a helper function that decorates the options dictionary so that it understands g:fzf_layout, g:fzf_action, and g:fzf_history_dir like :FZF.

command! -bang MyStuff
  \ call fzf#run(fzf#wrap('my-stuff', {'dir': '~/my-stuff'}, <bang>0))

Tips

Rendering issues

If you have any rendering issues, check the following:

1. Make sure $TERM is correctly set. fzf will use 256-color only if it contains 256 (e.g. xterm-256color)
2. If you're on screen or tmux, $TERM should be either screen or screen-256color
3. Some terminal emulators (e.g. mintty) have problem displaying default background color and make some text unable to read. In that case, try --black option. And if it solves your problem, I recommend including it in FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS for further convenience.
4. If you still have problem, try --no-256 option or even --no-color.

Respecting .gitignore, .hgignore, and svn:ignore

ag or pt will do the filtering:

# Feed the output of ag into fzf
ag -g "" | fzf

# Setting ag as the default source for fzf
export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='ag -g ""'

# Now fzf (w/o pipe) will use ag instead of find
fzf

# To apply the command to CTRL-T as well
export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="$FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND"

If you don't want to exclude hidden files, use the following command:

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='ag --hidden --ignore .git -g ""'

git ls-tree for fast traversal

If you're running fzf in a large git repository, git ls-tree can boost up the speed of the traversal.

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='
  (git ls-tree -r --name-only HEAD ||
   find . -path "*/\.*" -prune -o -type f -print -o -type l -print |
      sed s/^..//) 2> /dev/null'

Fish shell

It's a known bug of fish that it doesn't allow reading from STDIN in command substitution, which means simple vim (fzf) won't work as expected. The workaround is to store the result of fzf to a temporary file.

fzf > $TMPDIR/fzf.result; and vim (cat $TMPDIR/fzf.result)

License

MIT

Author

Junegunn Choi