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

It's an interactive Unix filter for command-line that can be used with any list; files, command history, processes, hostnames, bookmarks, git commits, etc.

Pros

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

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Using Homebrew
  • Using git
  • Using Linux package managers
  • Windows
  • As Vim plugin
• Upgrading fzf
• Building fzf
• Usage
  • Using the finder
  • Layout
  • Search syntax
  • Environment variables
  • Options
  • Demo
• Examples
• fzf-tmux script
• Key bindings for command-line
• Fuzzy completion for bash and zsh
  • Files and directories
  • Process IDs
  • Host names
  • Environment variables / Aliases
  • Settings
  • Supported commands
  • Custom fuzzy completion
• Vim plugin
• Advanced topics
  • Performance
  • Executing external programs
  • Turning into a different process
  • Reloading the candidate list
    • 1. Update the list of processes by pressing CTRL-R
    • 2. Switch between sources by pressing CTRL-D or CTRL-F
    • 3. Interactive ripgrep integration
  • Preview window
• Tips
  • Respecting .gitignore
  • Fish shell
• Related projects
• License

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 Homebrew

You can use Homebrew (on macOS or Linux) to install fzf.

brew install fzf

# To install useful key bindings and fuzzy completion:
$(brew --prefix)/opt/fzf/install

fzf is also available via MacPorts: sudo port install fzf

Using git

Alternatively, you can "git clone" this repository to any directory and run install script.

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

Using Linux package managers

Package Manager	Linux Distribution	Command
APK	Alpine Linux	sudo apk add fzf
APT	Debian 9+/Ubuntu 19.10+	sudo apt install fzf
Conda		conda install -c conda-forge fzf
DNF	Fedora	sudo dnf install fzf
Nix	NixOS, etc.	nix-env -iA nixpkgs.fzf
Pacman	Arch Linux	sudo pacman -S fzf
pkg	FreeBSD	pkg install fzf
pkgin	NetBSD	pkgin install fzf
pkg_add	OpenBSD	pkg_add fzf
Portage	Gentoo	emerge --ask app-shells/fzf
XBPS	Void Linux	sudo xbps-install -S fzf
Zypper	openSUSE	sudo zypper install fzf

⚠️ Key bindings (CTRL-T / CTRL-R / ALT-C) and fuzzy auto-completion may not be enabled by default.

Refer to the package documentation for more information. (e.g. apt show fzf)

Windows

Pre-built binaries for Windows can be downloaded here. fzf is also available via Chocolatey, Scoop, and Winget:

Package manager	Command
Chocolatey	choco install fzf
Scoop	scoop install fzf
Winget	winget install fzf

Known issues and limitations on Windows can be found on the wiki page.

As Vim plugin

If you use vim-plug, add this line to your Vim configuration file:

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }

fzf#install() makes sure that you have the latest binary, but it's optional, so you can omit it if you use a plugin manager that doesn't support hooks.

For more installation options, see README-VIM.md.

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 upgrade fzf
• macports: sudo port upgrade fzf
• chocolatey: choco upgrade fzf
• vim-plug: :PlugUpdate fzf

Building fzf

See BUILD.md.

Usage

fzf will launch interactive 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)

💡 A more robust solution would be to use xargs but we've presented the above as it's easier to grasp

fzf --print0 | xargs -0 -o vim

💡 fzf also has the ability to turn itself into a different process.

fzf --bind 'enter:become(vim {})'

See Turning into a different process for more information.

Using the finder

• CTRL-K / CTRL-J (or CTRL-P / CTRL-N) 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

Layout

fzf by default starts in fullscreen mode, but you can make it start below the cursor with --height option.

vim $(fzf --height 40%)

Also, check out --reverse and --layout options if you prefer "top-down" layout instead of the default "bottom-up" layout.

vim $(fzf --height 40% --reverse)

You can add these options to $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS so that they're applied by default. For example,

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS='--height 40% --layout=reverse --border'

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
'wild	exact-match (quoted)	Items that include wild
^music	prefix-exact-match	Items that start with music
.mp3$	suffix-exact-match	Items that end with .mp3
!fire	inverse-exact-match	Items that do not include fire
!^music	inverse-prefix-exact-match	Items that do not start with music
!.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='fd --type f'

  • ⚠️ This variable is not used by shell extensions due to the slight difference in requirements.

    (e.g. CTRL-T runs $FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND instead, vim **<tab> runs _fzf_compgen_path(), and cd **<tab> runs _fzf_compgen_dir())

    The available options are described later in this document.

• FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
  • Default options
  • e.g. export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--layout=reverse --inline-info"

Options

See the man page (man fzf) for the full list of options.

Demo

If you learn by watching videos, check out this screencast by @samoshkin to explore fzf features.

Examples

• Wiki page of examples
  • Disclaimer: The examples on this page are maintained by the community and are not thoroughly tested
• Advanced fzf examples

fzf-tmux script

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

# usage: fzf-tmux [LAYOUT OPTIONS] [--] [FZF OPTIONS]

# See available options
fzf-tmux --help

# 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 -[pudlr] options, so you can invariably use fzf-tmux in your scripts.

Alternatively, you can use --height HEIGHT[%] option not to start fzf in fullscreen mode.

fzf --height 40%

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 to fzf

    # Preview file content using bat (https://github.com/sharkdp/bat)
    export FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS="
      --preview 'bat -n --color=always {}'
      --bind 'ctrl-/:change-preview-window(down|hidden|)'"
    

• CTRL-R - Paste the selected command from history onto the command-line
  • If you want to see the commands in chronological order, press CTRL-R again which toggles sorting by relevance
  • Set FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS to pass additional options to fzf

    # CTRL-/ to toggle small preview window to see the full command
    # CTRL-Y to copy the command into clipboard using pbcopy
    export FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS="
      --preview 'echo {}' --preview-window up:3:hidden:wrap
      --bind 'ctrl-/:toggle-preview'
      --bind 'ctrl-y:execute-silent(echo -n {2..} | pbcopy)+abort'
      --color header:italic
      --header 'Press CTRL-Y to copy command into clipboard'"
    

• 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 to fzf

    # Print tree structure in the preview window
    export FZF_ALT_C_OPTS="--preview 'tree -C {}'"
    

If you're on a tmux session, you can start fzf in a tmux split-pane or in a tmux popup window by setting FZF_TMUX_OPTS (e.g. export FZF_TMUX_OPTS='-p80%,60%'). See fzf-tmux --help for available options.

More tips can be found on the wiki page.

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 the 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.

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

Host names

For ssh and telnet commands, fuzzy completion for hostnames 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='--border --info=inline'

# Use fd (https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) instead of the default find
# command for listing path candidates.
# - The first argument to the function ($1) is the base path to start traversal
# - See the source code (completion.{bash,zsh}) for the details.
_fzf_compgen_path() {
  fd --hidden --follow --exclude ".git" . "$1"
}

# Use fd to generate the list for directory completion
_fzf_compgen_dir() {
  fd --type d --hidden --follow --exclude ".git" . "$1"
}

# Advanced customization of fzf options via _fzf_comprun function
# - The first argument to the function is the name of the command.
# - You should make sure to pass the rest of the arguments to fzf.
_fzf_comprun() {
  local command=$1
  shift

  case "$command" in
    cd)           fzf --preview 'tree -C {} | head -200'   "$@" ;;
    export|unset) fzf --preview "eval 'echo \$'{}"         "$@" ;;
    ssh)          fzf --preview 'dig {}'                   "$@" ;;
    *)            fzf --preview 'bat -n --color=always {}' "$@" ;;
  esac
}

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 by using _fzf_setup_completion helper function.

# usage: _fzf_setup_completion path|dir|var|alias|host COMMANDS...
_fzf_setup_completion path ag git kubectl
_fzf_setup_completion dir tree

Custom fuzzy completion

(Custom completion API is experimental and subject to change)

For a command named "COMMAND", define _fzf_complete_COMMAND function using _fzf_complete helper.

# Custom fuzzy completion for "doge" command
#   e.g. doge **<TAB>
_fzf_complete_doge() {
  _fzf_complete --multi --reverse --prompt="doge> " -- "$@" < <(
    echo very
    echo wow
    echo such
    echo doge
  )
}

• The arguments before -- are the options to fzf.
• After --, simply pass the original completion arguments unchanged ("$@").
• Then, write a set of commands that generates the completion candidates and feed its output to the function using process substitution (< <(...)).

zsh will automatically pick up the function using the naming convention but in bash you have to manually associate the function with the command using the complete command.

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_doge -o default -o bashdefault doge

If you need to post-process the output from fzf, define _fzf_complete_COMMAND_post as follows.

_fzf_complete_foo() {
  _fzf_complete --multi --reverse --header-lines=3 -- "$@" < <(
    ls -al
  )
}

_fzf_complete_foo_post() {
  awk '{print $NF}'
}

[ -n "$BASH" ] && complete -F _fzf_complete_foo -o default -o bashdefault foo

Vim plugin

See README-VIM.md.

Advanced topics

Performance

fzf is fast. Performance should not be a problem in most use cases. However, you might want to be aware of the options that can affect performance.

• --ansi tells fzf to extract and parse ANSI color codes in the input, and it makes the initial scanning slower. So it's not recommended that you add it to your $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS.
• --nth makes fzf slower because it has to tokenize each line.
• --with-nth makes fzf slower as fzf has to tokenize and reassemble each line.

Executing external programs

You can set up key bindings for starting external processes without leaving fzf (execute, execute-silent).

# Press F1 to open the file with less without leaving fzf
# Press CTRL-Y to copy the line to clipboard and aborts fzf (requires pbcopy)
fzf --bind 'f1:execute(less -f {}),ctrl-y:execute-silent(echo {} | pbcopy)+abort'

See KEY BINDINGS section of the man page for details.

Turning into a different process

become(...) is similar to execute(...)/execute-silent(...) described above, but instead of executing the command and coming back to fzf on complete, it turns fzf into a new process for the command.

fzf --bind 'enter:become(vim {})'

Compared to the seemingly equivalent command substitution vim "$(fzf)", this approach has several advantages:

• Vim will not open an empty file when you terminate fzf with CTRL-C
• Vim will not open an empty file when you press ENTER on an empty result
• Can handle multiple selections even when they have whitespaces

  fzf --multi --bind 'enter:become(vim {+})'
  

To be fair, running fzf --print0 | xargs -0 -o vim instead of vim "$(fzf)" resolves all of the issues mentioned. Nonetheless, become(...) still offers additional benefits in different scenarios.

• You can set up multiple bindings to handle the result in different ways without any wrapping script

  fzf --bind 'enter:become(vim {}),ctrl-e:become(emacs {})'
  

  • Previously, you would have to use --expect=ctrl-e and check the first line of the output of fzf
• You can easily build the subsequent command using the field index expressions of fzf

  # Open the file in Vim and go to the line
  git grep --line-number . |
      fzf --delimiter : --nth 3.. --bind 'enter:become(vim {1} +{2})'
  

Reloading the candidate list

By binding reload action to a key or an event, you can make fzf dynamically reload the candidate list. See https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/issues/1750 for more details.

1. Update the list of processes by pressing CTRL-R

FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='ps -ef' \
  fzf --bind 'ctrl-r:reload(eval "$FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND")' \
      --header 'Press CTRL-R to reload' --header-lines=1 \
      --height=50% --layout=reverse

2. Switch between sources by pressing CTRL-D or CTRL-F

FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='find . -type f' \
  fzf --bind 'ctrl-d:reload(find . -type d),ctrl-f:reload(eval "$FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND")' \
      --height=50% --layout=reverse

3. Interactive ripgrep integration

The following example uses fzf as the selector interface for ripgrep. We bound reload action to change event, so every time you type on fzf, the ripgrep process will restart with the updated query string denoted by the placeholder expression {q}. Also, note that we used --disabled option so that fzf doesn't perform any secondary filtering.

INITIAL_QUERY=""
RG_PREFIX="rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case "
FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND="$RG_PREFIX '$INITIAL_QUERY'" \
  fzf --bind "change:reload:$RG_PREFIX {q} || true" \
      --ansi --disabled --query "$INITIAL_QUERY" \
      --height=50% --layout=reverse

If ripgrep doesn't find any matches, it will exit with a non-zero exit status, and fzf will warn you about it. To suppress the warning message, we added || true to the command, so that it always exits with 0.

See "Using fzf as interactive Ripgrep launcher" for a fuller example with preview window options.

Preview window

When the --preview option is set, fzf automatically starts an external process with the current line as the argument and shows the result in the split window. Your $SHELL is used to execute the command with $SHELL -c COMMAND. The window can be scrolled using the mouse or custom key bindings.

# {} is replaced with the single-quoted string of the focused line
fzf --preview 'cat {}'

Preview window supports ANSI colors, so you can use any program that syntax-highlights the content of a file, such as Bat or Highlight:

fzf --preview 'bat --color=always {}' --preview-window '~3'

You can customize the size, position, and border of the preview window using --preview-window option, and the foreground and background color of it with --color option. For example,

fzf --height 40% --layout reverse --info inline --border \
    --preview 'file {}' --preview-window up,1,border-horizontal \
    --bind 'ctrl-/:change-preview-window(50%|hidden|)' \
    --color 'fg:#bbccdd,fg+:#ddeeff,bg:#334455,preview-bg:#223344,border:#778899'

See the man page (man fzf) for the full list of options.

More advanced examples can be found here.

---

Since fzf is a general-purpose text filter rather than a file finder, it is not a good idea to add --preview option to your $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS.

# *********************
# ** DO NOT DO THIS! **
# *********************
export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS='--preview "bat --style=numbers --color=always --line-range :500 {}"'

# bat doesn't work with any input other than the list of files
ps -ef | fzf
seq 100 | fzf
history | fzf

Tips

Respecting .gitignore

You can use fd, ripgrep, or the silver searcher instead of the default find command to traverse the file system while respecting .gitignore.

# Feed the output of fd into fzf
fd --type f --strip-cwd-prefix | fzf

# Setting fd as the default source for fzf
export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='fd --type f --strip-cwd-prefix'

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

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

If you want the command to follow symbolic links and don't want it to exclude hidden files, use the following command:

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='fd --type f --strip-cwd-prefix --hidden --follow --exclude .git'

Fish shell

CTRL-T key binding of fish, unlike those of bash and zsh, will use the last token on the command-line as the root directory for the recursive search. For instance, hitting CTRL-T at the end of the following command-line

ls /var/

will list all files and directories under /var/.

When using a custom FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND, use the unexpanded $dir variable to make use of this feature. $dir defaults to . when the last token is not a valid directory. Example:

set -g FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND "command find -L \$dir -type f 2> /dev/null | sed '1d; s#^\./##'"

Related projects

https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/wiki/Related-projects

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2013-2023 Junegunn Choi