I love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again to get back to MC; this allows you to easily use MC for things it is the most efficient for, and normal command-line for things where that is better).
pimeys 7 hours ago [-]
I use it especially when moving files around in my NAS and it is awesome.
For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.
unmole 7 hours ago [-]
> and you can split the view
You could do the same with Nautilus. But in their infinite wisdom GNOME developers decided to remove that ability.
homebrewer 2 hours ago [-]
I'm partial to pcmanfm-qt, which also supports splits, and has the best "search in current directory" I've seen anywhere. You open a directory, start typing, and it filters out matching files fzf-style.
It doesn't simply select them like some other file managers do, it searches within the name and not just the prefix (again, like some other file managers), you don't have to press anything beforehand. When you get used to it, it's hard to go without it.
For those preferring lightweight environments, it has far fewer dependencies than dolphin.
graemep 4 hours ago [-]
Konqueror (the old KDE file manager) lets you do multiple splits, horizontal as well as vertical, and preview files in the file manager.
Very nice, but no longer as well maintained.
overfeed 4 hours ago [-]
> It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs.
I wish mc could browse remote URLs, and I'm tempted to author an mc clone in Go to address this particular pain-point. Maybe some day handcrafting bespoke rsync/rclone commands will frustrate me enough to motivate me.
baumschubser 4 hours ago [-]
In the Left/Right menu in mc, you can select FTP, SFTP and SSH URLs to browse. Is this not what you mean?
1718627440 4 hours ago [-]
And for other protocols like WebDAV you can mount them and then traverse with mc.
I used Krusader for years, then (after installing Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu) I discovered Double Commander (https://github.com/doublecmd/doublecmd), which is also free software, but more cross-platform (and developed using Free Pascal/Lazarus, which makes it old-fashioned in even more ways - it even used to be hosted on SourceForge, but it looks like they moved to GitHub now).
dayvster 2 hours ago [-]
My only issue with it is that it does not come with vim keybindings by default, I love to have consistent keybindings across my system / TUI tools
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
I think I love it more than you do. I am sure of it. It is ingrained into my workflow and how I think about files.
amelius 3 hours ago [-]
Can you reference the file that was modified latest by me? With one shortcut?
Because that's what I miss most in my shell.
inglor_cz 3 hours ago [-]
Same here. I wonder how much does it have to do with the fact that I came of age during the MS-DOS era. The design seems just so sleek and efficient to me.
thendrill 2 hours ago [-]
I have loved it since '99, when my friends used to tell me that to be a linux admin you have to stay up late because midnight commander works only after midnight ! Slackware 7 <3
jwr 4 hours ago [-]
Midnight commander is a great tool, although I think most younger users do not realize that we lost something along the way. Norton Commander was fantastically fast for common file operations not just because of the dual-pane design, but because of several things working together. Thoughtful design of software while thinking of hardware. To get the most out of it, you were supposed to use the numpad on your keyboard. And it should be the classic IBM PC numpad: large +, large 0, [num]/*- in the top row. Then, you wanted your function keys as a top row above your keyboard. Also, ESC was supposed to work immediately, not after a delay.
I know many people think these things don't matter, because you can do everything with MC (and more), but I disagree. In this case, every fraction of a second matters. In the setup I described above, selecting all files in the current directory and moving them to the directory in the other pane is: one flick of the right hand (roll over + and Enter on the numpad), F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand. Now try to do that using the + that is on your = key and tell me it's the same thing.
homebrewer 2 hours ago [-]
> ESC was supposed to work immediately, not after a delay.
It's not mc's fault, the Escape delay is added by the terminal emulator, to correctly handle escape sequences. You can probably configure it, but the most portable way that works everywhere is to simply press it twice quickly. It's only barely slower than the DOS way of doing it, and much faster than pressing and waiting for a second.
1 hours ago [-]
tremon 3 hours ago [-]
"select all files" was just one key: * (actually, it was invert selection -- so assuming no files were selected beforehand). Pressing + and Enter would select one file, then try to edit/run the next one?
nottorp 4 hours ago [-]
Stuff is still there as long as you get a proper keyboard.
Well, and monitor.
If you're slouching over your laptop for extended periods of time, you have bigger problems than not being able to use numpad +...
eviks 3 hours ago [-]
> every fraction of a second matters
That was not true otherwise you wouldn't get stuck with the most unergonomic keys mandating moving your hands off their resting place.
> selecting all files ... : one flick of the right hand
The common Ctrl+A is better, no flick, just shifting a single thumb
> F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand
Or still same single hand Ctrl+Shift+X (or something even easier like maybe X, X)
andyferris 11 minutes ago [-]
I used to use XTree Gold, which was... golden. I always heard of Midnight Commander but never really got around to using it. I should probably fix that.
What I never got was why this style of TUI (MS edit.com, qbasic, etc) isn't really carried through in modern tradition? I really enjoyed these when when I was younger... yet even textual or ratatui apps don't really bring this interface to the terminal. (Or why screen-coordinate-based terminals aren't the norm to base TUI apps upon... this aspect just seems "obvious" but in this aspect modern terminal emulates seem lightyears behind MS-DOS, of all things).
Perhaps the rewrite of edit [1] will spawn a ressurgence of this TUI style?
For some reason, the technical term for these is Orthodox File Manager, which I've always thought was an obscure cultural in-joke from the countries where these were most popular --- Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
The "orthodox" comes from a specific type of GUI, namely one that is driven by commands under the hood. UI elements are merely used to trigger commands that have the actual effect, and these commands could just as well be executed by hand, or automated into more complex commands.
This is an excellent way to build powerful UIs. It is what drives things like Vim, and often why Lisp-based software is so hackable -- think Emacs, StumpWM, etc. Instead of writing plugins against some small plugin API, you're wiring new functionality directly into the application.
The article you reference goes into more detail, as you say.
kiliankoe 6 hours ago [-]
Does Blender also qualify? It even shows you the name of the Python function behind each UI element on hover, which is great for discoverability when scripting. Or maybe it used to, can't see it now.
spookie 5 hours ago [-]
Still does if you enable dev mode, I think.
Levitating 3 hours ago [-]
Similar to the ELM architecture in a way? Except that the commands are literal commands that can be executed outside of the standard UI interaction.
faangguyindia 4 hours ago [-]
Isn't this what tools like lazygit use?
killerstorm 2 hours ago [-]
I'd say "Orthodox File Manager" is a forced meme by the author of the article. (Note that he links to his older article, etc.)
20-25 years ago when this kind of file managers were all the rage for power users I was in a Fidonet/Usenet discussion group with the most fanatical of these users, often sysadmins, plugin devs, etc. I don't think "orthodox" was used as a term - sometimes it was used as an epithet, maybe, sort of a joke.
But I guess Dr. Nikolai shows us that if you are really committed to introduced a term you can do it, eventually :D
Klaster_1 7 hours ago [-]
At least in Russia, "orthodox" has an extra connotation that's not strictly coupled to church, akin more to "one true way", as in "orthodox way to learn a tech stack". With a negation, it becomes something like "wrong" or even "heretical", as in "pizza with pineapple".
abcd_f 4 hours ago [-]
This is incorrect.
Ортодоксальный doesn't carry these connotations at all.
If anything, it describes something that is stuck in old ways and/or pointlessly rigid.
andrewshadura 7 hours ago [-]
What you're describing is the meaning of the word in English. I suspect using the word православный with this meaning started as a joke transplanting the English meaning of the word onto the corresponding Russian word.
rob74 2 hours ago [-]
Actually, it's the meaning of the word in Greek:
> "what is regarded as true or correct," from Late Latin orthodoxus, from Greek orthodoxos "having the right opinion," from orthos "right, true, straight" + doxa "opinion, praise".
But, when referring to dual-pane file managers, it's probably a mix of both meanings ("one true way" and "old-fashioned").
kgeist 6 hours ago [-]
"Orthodox" in Russian is "pravoslavny", literally "right faith" (pravyj = right, correct). I think it also contributes to the meaning. "The right way".
blks 4 hours ago [-]
Yes and no. Orthodox church is called “православная церковь”, yes, but the word “ортодоксальный” still exists to describe e.g. orthodox jews.
The word “православный” in a meaning of some object/technology/way being good and true only started being used in Internet culture during 00s, and it still used, but as a slang/joke.
rusk 5 hours ago [-]
Means the same thing in Ireland too! My understanding is it derives from greek for “ordinary teaching” we also use the term heterodox for a cultural setting that encourages different types of thought.
The term Paradox is a challenging or somewhat contradictory idea.
We also use the term orthodox for a right handed boxer. “Southpaw” is non-orthodox left handed.
gschizas 5 hours ago [-]
Greek here:
Orthodox = orthos + doxasia
Orthos = straight/correct
Doxasia = belief
orthodoxos = correct belief
rswail 6 hours ago [-]
The English word for that is "canonical".
tremon 3 hours ago [-]
To me, "canonical" feels more descriptive whereas "orthodox" has a prescriptive connotation. But I'm also ESL, so not sure if that's just me or common in any/all English-speaking countries.
schoen 2 hours ago [-]
They're both derived from religious terms or religious metaphors.
For me (native U.S. English speaker) the religious reference in "orthodox" is more transparent and that in "canonical" is more obscure, so "canonical" sounds more technical or more neutral somehow.
They were popular because there was no Unix culture in Eastern Europe at the time. Pretty much any computer geek was a DOS user. To me personally, it always seemed kind of lame because many of these people would not bother to properly learn the shell language.
JdeBP 7 hours ago [-]
The thing about Orthodox File Managers when they first came about, that does not occur today, was the amount of time that had to be devoted to explaining that particular features would not work on OS/2, Unices, Linux-based operating systems, or Windows NT because only MS/PC/DR-DOS let programs do things like directly manipulate stuff in some other program's PSP or directly peek/poke video RAM or the keyboard buffer; or that filenames did not necessarily have "extensions"; or that there was more than 1 type of timestamp; or that links and symbolic links existed; or that different people can have different local times on a single machine; or that directories actually have sizes.
Today, the DOS Think is far less prevalent.
Midnight Commander's screenshots would have looked a little off to OFM users with DOS Think. Today, it's the original MS/PC/DR-DOS tools that will appear odd to novices. They did things like have a narrow 8.3 filename column, omit the dots, use graphics in the filename for system files, use glyphs that one could only obtain through poking C0-range codes into video RAM, change UI elements as one pressed and released the Alt key, and so forth.
axiolite 7 hours ago [-]
I never could use mc. None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me, who had been using many different GUI file managers over the decades. Which is a shame, because I use SSH a LOT and doing normal file housework via pure CLI is super tedious and error-prone... Fortunately, I went looking more recently, and found the nnn file manager, which works properly with the basic keyboard commands I would expect, and really helped improve my workflow a lot:
It's a heavily GenX-coded tool. If you never used Norton Commander there's no point really.
buserror 6 hours ago [-]
Same here, nnn feels so much lighter too. It also works out of the box, no need to carry around "your" .rc file on dozens of systems as you work
ranger_danger 6 hours ago [-]
> None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me
They're exactly the same as Norton Commander had been since the 80s.
spookie 4 hours ago [-]
They probably weren't, huh... in front of computers when it was more of a thing.
It sure is a generational thing, I have the same problem with Emacs. But not with Vim.
thom 5 hours ago [-]
I still have great affection for Midnight Commander, like Norton Commander before it. I used to use the latter to initiate a parallel cable connection to my brother's computer for Doom deathmatches, pretty cool for a file manager.
For no good reason, here's a screenshot of both of them running side by side on an iPad, which is a thing you can apparently do these days:
This with the "Lynx-like motion" panel option and the "Quick view" enabled is the best way to review a source tree. So much so that the Debian ftp-masters use it and a plugin for doing license review of newly introduced packages.
I never used MC (not very much into TUIs) but ages ago I wrote a graphical file manager in the same vein. For me the inspiration came from Directory Opus [1] on the Amiga, which was just awesome.
When GTK+ was released in the late 90s, combining my love of C programming with a newfound home in Linux and GTK+'s ability to make complicated graphical interfaces resulted in a dual-pane file manager. It was a great project.
I find it a little sad that you haven't released a new revision since 2016 [0]. It has not declined in usefulness.
Edit: Incorrect:(I'd guess the biggest requested change would have been to update it from using GTK 2 to GTK 3, but I can
definitely understand why someone wouldn't want to...)
I thought I had released the GTK 3.x version, but I guess not, then. It might have been that there was something I just couldn't get to behave right, gentoo is somewhat picky about its UI and tries to make it do the right thing in ways that GTK sometimes isn't ready for.
Today I guess the target would be GTK 4.x, I tried to align with the latest main version back when I was maintaining it more.
Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :|
Findecanor 18 minutes ago [-]
> thought I had released the GTK 3.x version,
My bad. You had. Sorry.
> Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :|
Much congrats!
zerr 2 hours ago [-]
Funny that it is still available for Windows and costs 60 USD. I wonder who buys such software nowadays.
I've been working on "F2 Commander" on and off for a while now. At first, I wanted a TUI to view the contents of cloud storage buckets (GCS, S3, etc.), but it quickly evolved into an orthodox file manager. The funny thing is, the first version was in Common Lisp, but then I discovered Textual and was instantly sold on it - it's really fun to work with. The app scratches my itch, and although most of the time I myself prefer just using the regular command line, I open it up when I need to quickly navigate or move some files in a complex directory tree.
I've been a mc user for many years, but lately I've been using dired in emacs. It's quite powerful and intuitive to me.
vsviridov 7 hours ago [-]
I've been using `mc` for decades... In fact, in my early professional days as a software dev, I've written entire systems with PHP using `mcedit` (the built-in editor), because I didn't know `vim` then, and `mcedit` had syntax highlighting...
Joel_Mckay 7 hours ago [-]
Mostly used Notepad++ or SciTE ( https://www.scintilla.org/ ) over the years, as the number of languages/platforms I traverse made it a consistent option for dealing with various document encodings etc.
I thought mc and mcedit was cool, but needed something small and portable within a fairly locked-down environment ( "No [root] for you!" as the admin would say.) =3
throwaway53021 1 hours ago [-]
Many years ago, I used UltraEdit. It was fast, light weight(ish) and supported huge files.
hbbio 6 hours ago [-]
I have been using mc for almost 30 years, and the original Norton Commander as a kid before that!
Pleasantly surprised to see this topping HN today, and even more than the project and its website are still maintained in 2025.
integricho 5 hours ago [-]
For some strange reason I am attracted to try to use ZTreeWin, even though I am using a dual pane manager as my daily driver, but there is some nostalgic force driving me to try and force myself onto ZTreeWin.
I even bought the license for it more than 2 years ago, but still haven't touched it in any serious capacity. I mostly lack the convenience and speed by which I am able to accomplish tasks in my existing (dual panel) orthodox filemanager, and at the same time I am losing patience by learning every single thing in it from sratch. Does anyone know of a good learning resource for ZTreeWin?
riffraff 8 hours ago [-]
When I was young and incompetent mc was the only way I knew to remove files starting with a dash :)
muppetman 7 hours ago [-]
Hahah same!!!!
kqr 7 hours ago [-]
For people on Android phones, Ghost Commander is neat.
For people who like the power of Emacs dired, there used to be Sunrise Commander but last I looked it wasn't so actively maintained and had some bugs, so I've sadly gone back to regular dired.
I've always found Midnight Commander to be underrated, perhaps because it "looks old". I still recommend checking it out if you want a terminal-based file manager.
In case you do prefer GUIs, consider DoubleCommander.
blks 4 hours ago [-]
For MacOS, I love Marta file manager.
snvzz 4 hours ago [-]
Worker[0] is a mature double panel GUI file manager that's often overlooked.
Total Commander is still the first thing I install on every fresh Windows install for the last 20 or so years. Copy/move/delete etc keys are the same as in mc.
pilif 5 hours ago [-]
They are the same because both projects are inspired by Norton Commander for DOS which also used those keys.
lofaszvanitt 2 hours ago [-]
The best are the youtube movies that try to explain to amateurs how to use the horrible built in windows file manager WITH A MOUSE!.... while there is total commander.
yuvadam 5 hours ago [-]
For anyone looking for more modern terminal file managers: my favorite is yazi since it has great preview capabilities out of the box and requires zero config, but other alternatives are nnn, ranger, walk and lf.
haakon 4 hours ago [-]
mc user for decades here. I spent a long time teaching myself yazi and configuring it just to my liking, only to realize I don't really use a file manager that much anymore. It's hard to compete with shells for efficiency in most scenarios.
submeta 5 hours ago [-]
Yazi is absolutely phantastic. It can be extended by own scripts. I have configured it to jump to any folder via fzf, find any file in a folder and subfolders via `fd`, and navigate to any folder/subfolder on my system in seconds. I don't use my GUI finders on my Mac anymore. Absolutely recommended.
bvrmn 53 minutes ago [-]
I have fond memories for mc during my transition from Windows and trying to replace DOS Navigator and Far Manager with something similar. Started to use ranger a long ago though and never came back.
sedatk 6 hours ago [-]
`mc` was a gateway drug for me to switch from DOS to Linux in 1995. Because I hadn't been gotten comfortable with other text editors and file management commands yet, mc and its own text editor (mc -e) had felt very intuitive at the time. I felt at home. I was also amazed by stuff like FTP VFS support. It was so complete and done right.
0points 5 hours ago [-]
I been using mc since mandrake days, coming from dos looking for a norton commander replacement.
Still use mc in 2025 :-)
Aldipower 1 hours ago [-]
I still remember how I installed Slackware in 1996 and then found about Midnight Commander by accidentally typing in 'mc'. I LOLed hard as I saw the name "midnight". Still using it today too!!
protomikron 1 hours ago [-]
It's an interesting file browser, the default "blue" colors gives old-school vibes nowadays.
If you wonder how to quit (if started from a terminal):
It's `ESC 0`. Or "exit" like from a shell. Took me some time I have to admit (q, ctrl-c, ctrl-q, F10, ESC all did not work).
kidsil 1 hours ago [-]
F10 always worked for me, but some terminals use F10 for some other functionality.
If that fails, you can click on "10 Quit" with the mouse (not ideal, but an immediate solution).
protomikron 1 hours ago [-]
Ah I see, thx, it's a pretty default configured "gnome-terminal", which probably captures the F10.
egorfine 3 hours ago [-]
I have been using Norton Commander from early versions. Then Volkov Commander.
Somehow during my 30+ years *nix career I never truly and actually used mc. Seems like moving files around in shell is good enough.
aquir 6 hours ago [-]
After moving from Windows to MacOS mc is the closest to Total Commander - the only software that I’m still missing from MacOS. Reminds me to DOS Navigator and Volkov Commander or even FAR
hdrz 6 hours ago [-]
Try doublecmd[1], much better then tc, open source, updated frequently, works on all platforms. Oh and written in object pascal, which I like a lot!
Thanks, your comment was the one I was looking for, even though I had guessed that ‘brew install mc’ would work. I am curious how mc will fit in with tmux and emacs-nw.
unixhero 3 minutes ago [-]
With tmux it is seamless, screen as well.
I don't know anything about Emacs =)
spapas82 6 hours ago [-]
In a restricted environment like a console only system these two pane file managers are very useful. I was a heavy user of norton commander (nc) back in my DOS days. Also these are useful on mobile.
However I rarely use them on a graphical environment like windows where I can open arbitrary explorer windows and arrange them as I see like. I guess it depends on what people have experience on...
glimmung 7 hours ago [-]
I just couldn't live without this thing. Well, I could but I would be less productive and more grumpy.
Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I developed DataEase applications under MS-DOS there was a thing called "Pathminder" [1] which was a very useful tool. Moving to Linux and finding Midnight Commander felt like coming home...
I used Norton Commander from the early DOS days. I've gone through many clones over the years. Eventually I was more OK with just using command line for moving files around, but I still find myself starting mc and moving things that way, because it's just so much easier. I'm so glad it still exists and is maintained.
ggaughan 2 hours ago [-]
It uses F10 to quit so if you're in GNOME Terminal (e.g. Ubuntu) go to Terminal Preferences|General and uncheck "Enable the menu accelerator key (F10 by default)", or use Alt-0 to quit instead.
vim-guru 6 hours ago [-]
Nostalgia!
However; dired (and wdired) is more powerful, so I won't be switching back any time soon.
internet_points 4 hours ago [-]
you need a new username =P
Havoc 5 hours ago [-]
Didn’t realize mc was under gnu banner. Nice.
I’ve been trying to get used to ranger since I’m learning vim anyway
DoctorOW 2 hours ago [-]
Weird question, when you call yourself "GNU <NAME>" does that just mean GNU Public License, or is it more like "Apache <NAME>" where there's an organization attached?
schoen 2 hours ago [-]
It's supposed to be the latter (approval as part of the GNU Project).
javaunsafe2019 6 hours ago [-]
We all know it’s a clone of the Norton commander.
k__ 3 hours ago [-]
I fondly remember my first PC, which only had DOS.
I came from C64 where I had GEOS, that allowed me to do anything with a nice GUI, so it felt like quite the step back.
However, PCs were all the rage at that time, so I got one and thanks to Norton Commander, I was able to use it with a nice(+ish) GUI too.
atmosx 4 hours ago [-]
I use midnight commander to transfer files between my servers using FTP over VPN but supports multiple protocols. Great software, once you get familiar with the shortcuts there's nothing like it. Clean, simple and does the job. You can transfer in the background or foreground. It's a pretty complete tool.
xdkyx 5 hours ago [-]
I used to install Windows Commander (later Total Commander) on every system I have used, so much so that I bought the Total Commander licence. However as time passes by I used it less and less, to the point that currently I run it once a month out of pure nostalgia.
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
I still use it. Did you know it supports extensions? Such as being able to explore SQLite files and so on. A Polish team has put toghether as many extensions as possible into a self contained installer-distro for Total Commander. It is called Total Commander Ultima Prime. I enjoy it a lot.
If we're going to individually name every Orthodox File Manager, we are going to take some while. (-:
xiphias2 7 hours ago [-]
You mean like FAR commander? ;)
gschizas 5 hours ago [-]
FAR Manager. They went civilian :)
machomaster 4 hours ago [-]
Dos Navigator.
lepicz 4 hours ago [-]
m602
lepicz 7 hours ago [-]
volkov was a great virus detector
its size was right at the edge of segment (64k) so when a virus appended to the .com binary, volkov stopped working
selcuka 6 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately there were also badly written, overwriting viruses that destroyed the host.
I made a COM-to-EXE convertor back in time so that I can compress them with LZEXE (I don't remember anything about it, but I guess I just prepended an empty relocation table). It would have been interesting to incorporate that functionality in a virus.
tyfon 6 hours ago [-]
I still use volcov commander on my dos machines :)
And MC on the *nixes of course.
auselen 7 hours ago [-]
I remember asking to my friend how do you use ‘nc’ in Linux and he answering “type ‘mc’”.
pmkary 4 hours ago [-]
Miguel de Icaza Rocks So Hard. And whatever he makes rocks as much.
hxorr 4 hours ago [-]
I am especially fond of mcedit, the midnight commander editor which can be run independently. Very easy to pick up and use as a casual user as opposed to something like vi
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
Yes its really great. You should check out Jed's editor on Linux and MultiEdit on MSdos. It continues in the same spirit as MCView. Both are definitely inspired by Turbo Pascal.
zaptheimpaler 6 hours ago [-]
I've been using OneCommander [1] on Windows for a few years now, it's great. Also dual pane with lots of extra features and active development.
I grew up using Norton Commander. It had everything I needed including a decent editor!
I'm not sure if midnight commander was a complete rewrite.
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
It is a clean room imlementation and mostly feature complete with more modern support such as SFTP, UTF-8 and so on.
MangoToupe 47 minutes ago [-]
I'm a little surprised graphical file management is so popular. I use the command line for almost everything (ie using unix utilities to manage files), and I am a little mystified as to what people do with their computers such that file management is so time consuming it benefits from stuff like this.
It now even supports true keyboard reporting (through Kitty TTY protocol on compatible terminals) for SSH connections.
pantulis 7 hours ago [-]
The killer feature in mc was the popup menu that you could configure to run several commands on the selected files. And if memory serves it could be customized on a global or directory specific way.
"was"? People still use it. Like a lot. I'm surprised
pantulis 5 hours ago [-]
Good shout!
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
Which menu is that? I never tried it. Been an MC user since 1997.
bronlund 5 hours ago [-]
I still use both Midnight Commander and Total Commander daily. Those are hard habits to kick :D For macOS, I use Forklift.
mischief6 7 hours ago [-]
my one gripe after using mc for a few years is no parallel transfer support. it slows down significantly when transferring small files compared to one large file.
unixhero 4 hours ago [-]
That I agree with. In Total Commander I typically do F5 copy and then put it in the background F2. Then start another.
This isn't possible in MC. And also a concrete parallelization is not available. This sounds like a feasible feature request to the upstream MC project! I'm sure Gnu Parallel or just pure C code would be able to handle parallelization of copy jobs.
EDIT:
Wait! It does have background transfer now. Which means my technique of how I do it in Total Commander will work in MC now as well. It is almost like having Parallelization.
amelius 3 hours ago [-]
How does it compare to Apple's Finder?
Ambix 5 hours ago [-]
Still my default tool to install on any remote server. My secret weapon :)
graycrow 4 hours ago [-]
MC is a great file manager, but Far2l is even better.
latchkey 7 hours ago [-]
Brings back memories. This is one of my older open source contributions that's still visible. I helped port it to a/ux in the early 90's. Line 98: https://fossies.org/linux/mc/AUTHORS
It was originally written by Miguel de Icaza who became a semi-famous for his work on Mono and others.
mongol 6 hours ago [-]
I think Miguel's greatest legacy is starting the Gnome project.
roywashere 7 hours ago [-]
And who started Gnome Desktop! That always strikes me as funny. That he made the ultimate tool for in the terminal, and then move on to write a desktop environment
Wow, I have absolutely no need for access to a game engine but I still will do the free trial. Some complaints about cost but $3 per week or $30 per year seems reasonable enough. I am a fan of the Swift Playground.
Starting when I wrote the Chess program that Apple distributed on their Apple II demo cassette tape, I have been interested in writing games for fun. Unfortunately, while I can code, I need artists and generally people with ‘game design style’ to do anything decent - I had that when I worked at Angel Studios.
latchkey 7 hours ago [-]
It was kind of the evolution of the time though. We were coming from dumb terminals hooked up to VAX/VMS and Ultrix boxes with kermit, to computers that had a tcp/ip stack and could actually do graphics.
EbNar 7 hours ago [-]
Great FM. I still use it consistently, especially when dealing with a large number of files.
sigttou 8 hours ago [-]
Brings back great memories, used to be my default diff viewer for several years.
worldsayshi 57 minutes ago [-]
How does it compare to meld?
bmackenty 7 hours ago [-]
Still used in Poland. I still manage some systems using mcedit.
Ringz 6 hours ago [-]
If only you could redefine the keyboard shortcuts...
JNRowe 6 hours ago [-]
You can, it even ships with two files you can use as examples in mc.{emacs,vim}.keymap. The vim one has my favorite comment in a config file:
[editor]
# No remapping, just use vim instead of mcedit
Given that you can specify the bindings config to use at startup with --keymap you can even configure task specific sets of bindings. This combined with extfs and custom menus makes it a great way to make a personal interface to non-file data sources too.
Ringz 4 hours ago [-]
Thanx! I completely missed that. That’s helpful even though a „Operator Pending Mode„ is missing.
Nursie 8 hours ago [-]
I haven't used this for a long old time. Back in the day it was the only way to recover your university dissertation when you'd rm -rf'd in the wrong directory.
Go on, ask me how I know ...
I've not had much cause to use it since then though.
danielktdoranie 8 hours ago [-]
Okay, I’ll bite mate:
How do you know?
antonvs 8 hours ago [-]
They rm -rf'd the wrong directory, lost their dissertation, and used mc to recover it.
Nursie 7 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the answer was there in the question really :)
That was not a good day, about a week before submission was due. I unmounted the disk the second I realised what I'd done and started to look for guides on finding lost ext2 inodes. MC to the rescue!
ksynwa 7 hours ago [-]
mc can recover deleted files?
Nursie 7 hours ago [-]
Back in the 90s it certainly had some features that made it easier to do so, yes. On ext2 file systems (no journaling or other advanced features) it had some method to browse unlinked inodes that were still on disk so you could recover them. They’d then show up in “lost+found”.
If you were quick and unmounted as soon as you had realised what you’d done, and the space had not been re-used for anything, you could often get the file back because rm just unlinked the inodes on ext2 IIRC.
I imagine that the commands it used under the hood were accessible to anyone with the right know-how, but at the time that’s not something I had, and all the guides started with “use midnight commander” so I did :)
(Saying “only way” to recover might be a stretch, it’s true)
lepicz 7 hours ago [-]
Mouseless Commander :)
migueldeicaza 1 hours ago [-]
Good memory!
faangguyindia 7 hours ago [-]
most of the russian programmers i worked with use this. Not sure if it's taught in university or something.
lproven 4 hours ago [-]
Orthodox file managers seem to be very much a thing across the Eastern Bloc.
I moved from England to Czechia in 2014 and was amazed to discover almost everyone used them. My first job in a Windows company, it had a site licence to Total Commander, and it was preinstalled on all machines.
When I told them I found the Windows Explorer to be perfectly fine, people genuinely gaped in amazement at me as if I said I chose to type with my feet or something. But I do. It's very keyboard-controllable, and was fast and efficient until MS started to cram the ribbon UI into it. Since Windows 8 it's been destroyed.
lofaszvanitt 2 hours ago [-]
Mazochist :)
olaf 5 hours ago [-]
I preferred snappy XTree
inoffensivename 8 hours ago [-]
Can I get it in a Docker container?
p0w3n3d 7 hours ago [-]
It would be like having `ls` in a container
kqr 7 hours ago [-]
I think this is one of the cases where Nix would be easier. To try it out without polluting your global namespace, nix run nixpkgs#mc.
EbNar 7 hours ago [-]
I guess so, but what would be the use case for it?
sira04 6 hours ago [-]
docker run --rm -it -v "$(pwd):$(pwd)" -w "$(pwd)" nixery.dev/mc mc
batrat 7 hours ago [-]
why bother? I use mine in my AI powered, headless, kubernetes cluster
serf 8 hours ago [-]
unraid has a docker container for Krusader - same thing different flavor, why not.
BlaDeKke 7 hours ago [-]
This is not a chat client.
Vaslo 5 hours ago [-]
I have it in a Docker container in UnRaid to move all my Media around. It’s great.
qalmakka 8 hours ago [-]
Lol. Realistically speaking, you'd have to bind mount your entire home for it to be usable then
fulafel 7 hours ago [-]
Maybe you're just looking to shell around in your container deployed in a pod somewhere.
jalk 6 hours ago [-]
That should be doable with `kubectl debug ...` - e.g. attach an ephemeral sidecar container with mc to already running pod.
And you would ofc. configure that in K9S as a plugin to easily launch it :)
balamatom 7 hours ago [-]
Yes. Probably even a distroless one.
bmn__ 4 hours ago [-]
Lots of comments here review the (OFM) concept, not the particular implementation.
I have plenty of criticism for MC, I wish it had the sufficient amount of features so that it becomes a better representative of its genre and I could start recommending it to other users. Krusader and Total Commander are lightyears ahead, try these first.
fithisux 8 hours ago [-]
Fun fact, on Windows I stopped using File Explorer and use Midnight Commander.
Now that I am more into the command line, I may need to give it a try.
lucas_membrane 6 hours ago [-]
Fun fact (???) wayback about 40 years ago Central Point Software was humiliating Microsoft with its suites of utilities for Microsoft's OS's, which included file managers for Windows (and MS-DOS IIRC), and was a top rated #1 best seller. Microsoft graciously offered to buy a license for said software from Central Point, which they would make a standard part of windows. This was the kind of deal that practical realists tend to accept, even though it spells DOOM with a capital 3-finger salute. 'Tis great to see something as versatile as the wheel and axle or the Oklahoma speed wrench still rolling along.
witrak 5 hours ago [-]
It seems nobody remembers the reason for the F-key assignment in the original i.e. Norton Commander... The assignment was very logical and easy to remember (and use) on the original PC keyboard, where F-keys were located in two columns on the left edge of the keyboard: F1, F2, then F3, F4, and so on. You can immediately see the advantages of the F9 location (the leftmost key at the bottom) and of the proximity of the Browse and Edit keys. I used my left thumb to press F10 - it was in the correct place almost without palm movement...
Nowadays I almost don't use Mc (except for file manipulation) because the Linux version has a serious weak point - it blocks the most important keystroke in shell: Tab. It is of course traditionally reserved for panel switching but this role could be deactivated when instead a single command line zone MC would allow to have a multi-line (in NC it was 3 or 4 line) zone for the shell scrolled display. This way it would be possible to have the full-size panel display (with the Tab switching panes) and one keystroke away reduced-size panels with full functionality of the shell tab key in the alternative panel mode...
Another disadvantage is the complicated way of changing settings (especially the colors and file attributes display format) in practice forcing trial and error mode... True, it's not needed often but spending hours on it is rather deterrent.
lofaszvanitt 2 hours ago [-]
MC needs a shakeup from its current maintenance mode, since many state-of-the-art features, especially around copying, should be added. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the last decade.
I always preferred XTree to Norton Commander, and I was a heavy Norton user in the 1980s.
Delighted to find there are some Linux versions!
8 hours ago [-]
thegreatursula 13 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
jcc11 54 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
KaiserPro 4 hours ago [-]
I never understood the fervent love for midnight/norton commander. Its not like its a new phenomenon. I remember people raving about it in the late 90s too.
is it nostalgia, or is it really that useful?
mrweasel 3 hours ago [-]
For some people it's just how they work. I did consulting for a company, and the developer I sat next to on my visits used Total Commander of all things. It was probably the first thing he'd install on any new Windows machine. He never open Explorer, everything related to files was done within the confines of Total Commander. For those who got started with Norton Commander and moved to Linux/Unix from there, Midnight Commander is probably just the tool they are used to and it's completely ingrained in their workflows.
Personally I really want to like Midnight Commander, well I do like it, I just don't use it that much. As someone else pointed out, the keyboard shortcuts just doesn't work for me for some reason. I think if you grew up using the F-keys a lot, then it probably makes total sense.
KaiserPro 3 hours ago [-]
I can;t really argue with the force of habit. I've installed vim bindings to vscode, so I can see their point.
oytis 4 hours ago [-]
MSDOS shell language was completely awful as I remember, so Norton Commander came in really handy.
nvtop 2 hours ago [-]
I tried to love mc, but its ergonomics felt slightly off. Maybe it's just hard to rewire my Norton / Volkov Commander / FAR Manager muscle memory, I don't know
While I use command line tools on Linux daily, using a console-based tool that pretends to be a GUI tool is a bridge too far, so I prefer GUI-based dual pane file managers like Double Commander or Krusader.
Of course mc and far can be used over an SSH connection, so they have their advantages too...
For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.
You could do the same with Nautilus. But in their infinite wisdom GNOME developers decided to remove that ability.
It doesn't simply select them like some other file managers do, it searches within the name and not just the prefix (again, like some other file managers), you don't have to press anything beforehand. When you get used to it, it's hard to go without it.
https://github.com/lxqt/pcmanfm-qt
For those preferring lightweight environments, it has far fewer dependencies than dolphin.
Very nice, but no longer as well maintained.
I wish mc could browse remote URLs, and I'm tempted to author an mc clone in Go to address this particular pain-point. Maybe some day handcrafting bespoke rsync/rclone commands will frustrate me enough to motivate me.
Try <https://krusader.org>. Same KDE underpinnings, but orthodox interface.
Because that's what I miss most in my shell.
I know many people think these things don't matter, because you can do everything with MC (and more), but I disagree. In this case, every fraction of a second matters. In the setup I described above, selecting all files in the current directory and moving them to the directory in the other pane is: one flick of the right hand (roll over + and Enter on the numpad), F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand. Now try to do that using the + that is on your = key and tell me it's the same thing.
It's not mc's fault, the Escape delay is added by the terminal emulator, to correctly handle escape sequences. You can probably configure it, but the most portable way that works everywhere is to simply press it twice quickly. It's only barely slower than the DOS way of doing it, and much faster than pressing and waiting for a second.
Well, and monitor.
If you're slouching over your laptop for extended periods of time, you have bigger problems than not being able to use numpad +...
That was not true otherwise you wouldn't get stuck with the most unergonomic keys mandating moving your hands off their resting place.
> selecting all files ... : one flick of the right hand
The common Ctrl+A is better, no flick, just shifting a single thumb
> F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand
Or still same single hand Ctrl+Shift+X (or something even easier like maybe X, X)
What I never got was why this style of TUI (MS edit.com, qbasic, etc) isn't really carried through in modern tradition? I really enjoyed these when when I was younger... yet even textual or ratatui apps don't really bring this interface to the terminal. (Or why screen-coordinate-based terminals aren't the norm to base TUI apps upon... this aspect just seems "obvious" but in this aspect modern terminal emulates seem lightyears behind MS-DOS, of all things).
Perhaps the rewrite of edit [1] will spawn a ressurgence of this TUI style?
[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-open-...
For some reason, the technical term for these is Orthodox File Manager, which I've always thought was an obscure cultural in-joke from the countries where these were most popular --- Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
This origin is elaborated at length here: https://softpanorama.org/Articles/introduction_to_orthodox_f...
This is an excellent way to build powerful UIs. It is what drives things like Vim, and often why Lisp-based software is so hackable -- think Emacs, StumpWM, etc. Instead of writing plugins against some small plugin API, you're wiring new functionality directly into the application.
The article you reference goes into more detail, as you say.
20-25 years ago when this kind of file managers were all the rage for power users I was in a Fidonet/Usenet discussion group with the most fanatical of these users, often sysadmins, plugin devs, etc. I don't think "orthodox" was used as a term - sometimes it was used as an epithet, maybe, sort of a joke.
But I guess Dr. Nikolai shows us that if you are really committed to introduced a term you can do it, eventually :D
Ортодоксальный doesn't carry these connotations at all.
If anything, it describes something that is stuck in old ways and/or pointlessly rigid.
> "what is regarded as true or correct," from Late Latin orthodoxus, from Greek orthodoxos "having the right opinion," from orthos "right, true, straight" + doxa "opinion, praise".
(https://www.etymonline.com/word/orthodox)
But, when referring to dual-pane file managers, it's probably a mix of both meanings ("one true way" and "old-fashioned").
The word “православный” in a meaning of some object/technology/way being good and true only started being used in Internet culture during 00s, and it still used, but as a slang/joke.
The term Paradox is a challenging or somewhat contradictory idea.
We also use the term orthodox for a right handed boxer. “Southpaw” is non-orthodox left handed.
Orthodox = orthos + doxasia
Orthos = straight/correct
Doxasia = belief
orthodoxos = correct belief
For me (native U.S. English speaker) the religious reference in "orthodox" is more transparent and that in "canonical" is more obscure, so "canonical" sounds more technical or more neutral somehow.
Also:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_file_manager
Today, the DOS Think is far less prevalent.
Midnight Commander's screenshots would have looked a little off to OFM users with DOS Think. Today, it's the original MS/PC/DR-DOS tools that will appear odd to novices. They did things like have a narrow 8.3 filename column, omit the dots, use graphics in the filename for system files, use glyphs that one could only obtain through poking C0-range codes into video RAM, change UI elements as one pressed and released the Alt key, and so forth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nnn_(file_manager)
They're exactly the same as Norton Commander had been since the 80s.
It sure is a generational thing, I have the same problem with Emacs. But not with Vim.
For no good reason, here's a screenshot of both of them running side by side on an iPad, which is a thing you can apparently do these days:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYRYTq6WUAAt_1t?format=jpg&name=...
https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/20191228133344.GA4943@...
When GTK+ was released in the late 90s, combining my love of C programming with a newfound home in Linux and GTK+'s ability to make complicated graphical interfaces resulted in a dual-pane file manager. It was a great project.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Opus
Edit: Incorrect:(I'd guess the biggest requested change would have been to update it from using GTK 2 to GTK 3, but I can definitely understand why someone wouldn't want to...)
0: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gentoo/
I thought I had released the GTK 3.x version, but I guess not, then. It might have been that there was something I just couldn't get to behave right, gentoo is somewhat picky about its UI and tries to make it do the right thing in ways that GTK sometimes isn't ready for.
Today I guess the target would be GTK 4.x, I tried to align with the latest main version back when I was maintaining it more.
Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :|
My bad. You had. Sorry.
> Oh and 2016 makes sense, had my first kid in 2015 ... :|
Much congrats!
I've been working on "F2 Commander" on and off for a while now. At first, I wanted a TUI to view the contents of cloud storage buckets (GCS, S3, etc.), but it quickly evolved into an orthodox file manager. The funny thing is, the first version was in Common Lisp, but then I discovered Textual and was instantly sold on it - it's really fun to work with. The app scratches my itch, and although most of the time I myself prefer just using the regular command line, I open it up when I need to quickly navigate or move some files in a complex directory tree.
[1] https://textual.textualize.io/
I thought mc and mcedit was cool, but needed something small and portable within a fairly locked-down environment ( "No [root] for you!" as the admin would say.) =3
Pleasantly surprised to see this topping HN today, and even more than the project and its website are still maintained in 2025.
For people who like the power of Emacs dired, there used to be Sunrise Commander but last I looked it wasn't so actively maintained and had some bugs, so I've sadly gone back to regular dired.
In case you do prefer GUIs, consider DoubleCommander.
0. http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/worker/
Still use mc in 2025 :-)
If you wonder how to quit (if started from a terminal):
It's `ESC 0`. Or "exit" like from a shell. Took me some time I have to admit (q, ctrl-c, ctrl-q, F10, ESC all did not work).
If that fails, you can click on "10 Quit" with the mouse (not ideal, but an immediate solution).
Somehow during my 30+ years *nix career I never truly and actually used mc. Seems like moving files around in shell is good enough.
[1]: https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io
https://brew.sh/
The command to install it is:
brew install mc
I don't know anything about Emacs =)
However I rarely use them on a graphical environment like windows where I can open arbitrary explorer windows and arrange them as I see like. I guess it depends on what people have experience on...
Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I developed DataEase applications under MS-DOS there was a thing called "Pathminder" [1] which was a very useful tool. Moving to Linux and finding Midnight Commander felt like coming home...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder
I’ve been trying to get used to ranger since I’m learning vim anyway
I came from C64 where I had GEOS, that allowed me to do anything with a nice GUI, so it felt like quite the step back.
However, PCs were all the rage at that time, so I got one and thanks to Norton Commander, I was able to use it with a nice(+ish) GUI too.
https://tcup.pl
its size was right at the edge of segment (64k) so when a virus appended to the .com binary, volkov stopped working
I made a COM-to-EXE convertor back in time so that I can compress them with LZEXE (I don't remember anything about it, but I guess I just prepended an empty relocation table). It would have been interesting to incorporate that functionality in a virus.
And MC on the *nixes of course.
[1] https://www.onecommander.com/
https://tcup.pl/
I'm not sure if midnight commander was a complete rewrite.
It now even supports true keyboard reporting (through Kitty TTY protocol on compatible terminals) for SSH connections.
This isn't possible in MC. And also a concrete parallelization is not available. This sounds like a feasible feature request to the upstream MC project! I'm sure Gnu Parallel or just pure C code would be able to handle parallelization of copy jobs.
EDIT: Wait! It does have background transfer now. Which means my technique of how I do it in Total Commander will work in MC now as well. It is almost like having Parallelization.
It was originally written by Miguel de Icaza who became a semi-famous for his work on Mono and others.
Starting when I wrote the Chess program that Apple distributed on their Apple II demo cassette tape, I have been interested in writing games for fun. Unfortunately, while I can code, I need artists and generally people with ‘game design style’ to do anything decent - I had that when I worked at Angel Studios.
Go on, ask me how I know ...
I've not had much cause to use it since then though.
How do you know?
That was not a good day, about a week before submission was due. I unmounted the disk the second I realised what I'd done and started to look for guides on finding lost ext2 inodes. MC to the rescue!
If you were quick and unmounted as soon as you had realised what you’d done, and the space had not been re-used for anything, you could often get the file back because rm just unlinked the inodes on ext2 IIRC.
I imagine that the commands it used under the hood were accessible to anyone with the right know-how, but at the time that’s not something I had, and all the guides started with “use midnight commander” so I did :)
(Saying “only way” to recover might be a stretch, it’s true)
I moved from England to Czechia in 2014 and was amazed to discover almost everyone used them. My first job in a Windows company, it had a site licence to Total Commander, and it was preinstalled on all machines.
When I told them I found the Windows Explorer to be perfectly fine, people genuinely gaped in amazement at me as if I said I chose to type with my feet or something. But I do. It's very keyboard-controllable, and was fast and efficient until MS started to cram the ribbon UI into it. Since Windows 8 it's been destroyed.
I have plenty of criticism for MC, I wish it had the sufficient amount of features so that it becomes a better representative of its genre and I could start recommending it to other users. Krusader and Total Commander are lightyears ahead, try these first.
Now that I am more into the command line, I may need to give it a try.
Nowadays I almost don't use Mc (except for file manipulation) because the Linux version has a serious weak point - it blocks the most important keystroke in shell: Tab. It is of course traditionally reserved for panel switching but this role could be deactivated when instead a single command line zone MC would allow to have a multi-line (in NC it was 3 or 4 line) zone for the shell scrolled display. This way it would be possible to have the full-size panel display (with the Tab switching panes) and one keystroke away reduced-size panels with full functionality of the shell tab key in the alternative panel mode... Another disadvantage is the complicated way of changing settings (especially the colors and file attributes display format) in practice forcing trial and error mode... True, it's not needed often but spending hours on it is rather deterrent.
Delighted to find there are some Linux versions!
is it nostalgia, or is it really that useful?
Personally I really want to like Midnight Commander, well I do like it, I just don't use it that much. As someone else pointed out, the keyboard shortcuts just doesn't work for me for some reason. I think if you grew up using the F-keys a lot, then it probably makes total sense.
I ended up being on a Linux fork of Far Manager, which works beautifully: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l
Of course mc and far can be used over an SSH connection, so they have their advantages too...