Midnight Commander File Manager

Install

sudo apt install mc

Launch

mc

Navigation

• Tab - Switch panels
• Enter - Enter directory / Execute file
• Ins - Select/deselect file
• * - Invert selection
• + - Select by pattern
• \ - Deselect by pattern

Function keys

• F1 - Help
• F2 - User menu
• F3 - View file
• F4 - Edit file
• F5 - Copy
• F6 - Move/Rename
• F7 - Create directory
• F8 - Delete
• F9 - Menu
• F10 - Exit

Quick commands

• Ctrl+O - Show/hide panels (shell)
• Ctrl+U - Swap panels
• Ctrl+\ - Directory hotlist
• Alt+, - Switch MC layout
• Alt+. - Show hidden files
• Alt+Shift+? - Find file

File operations

Copy

1. Select files (Ins)
2. Press F5
3. Choose destination
4. Enter

Move

1. Select files
2. Press F6
3. Choose destination
4. Enter

Delete

1. Select files
2. Press F8
3. Confirm

View file (F3)

• F3 again - Raw/Parsed view
• F4 - Editor
• F7 - Search
• F8 or q - Quit viewer
• Space - Page down
• b - Page up

Edit file (F4)

• Uses mcedit by default
• F2 - Save
• F6 - Save as
• F10 - Quit
• Shift+F3 - Mark text
• F3 - Copy
• F5 - Copy to clipboard
• F6 - Move
• F8 - Delete marked

Panels

Sort order

• Ctrl+F3 - Sort by name
• Ctrl+F4 - Sort by extension
• Ctrl+F5 - Sort by date
• Ctrl+F6 - Sort by size

Display modes

• Alt+T - List mode
• Alt+F - Full mode
• Alt+B - Brief mode

Virtual File System (VFS)

Browse archives

Navigate into:

• .tar.gz
• .zip
• .rpm
• .deb

Extract files normally with F5/F6

FTP

F9 → Right/Left → FTP link Or: cd ftp://user@server/path

SSH/SFTP

cd sh://user@server/path
cd sftp://user@server/path

Command line

• Ctrl+Enter - Copy filename to command line
• Alt+Enter - Copy full path to command line
• Alt+Tab - Auto-complete
• Ctrl+X T - Copy selected names
• Ctrl+X Ctrl+T - Copy opposite panel names

Search

Alt+? or Esc then ?

• By name pattern
• By content
• Set search scope

User menu (F2)

Create ~/.config/mc/menu:

+ t r
1   View file
	cat %f | less

+ t r
2   Edit with vim
	vim %f

+ t d
3   Compress directory
	tar -czf %d.tar.gz %d

Subshell

Ctrl+O - Toggle panels

Run commands, then Ctrl+O to return to mc

Configuration

Files in ~/.config/mc/:

• mc.ini - Main config
• panels.ini - Panel settings
• menu - User menu
• hotlist - Directory hotlist

Hotlist

• Ctrl+\ - Show hotlist
• Add current dir to hotlist in menu

Compare

directories

1. Both panels showing desired dirs
2. Ctrl+X D - Compare directories
3. Shows differences

Tips

# Start in specific directory
mc /var/log

# Start in two directories
mc /etc /var/log

# Disable mouse
mc -d

# Use  skin
mc -S <skin-name>

# List skins
ls /usr/share/mc/skins/

Keyboard shortcuts summary

Tab         - Switch panels
Ins         - Select file
F3          - View
F4          - Edit
F5          - Copy
F6          - Move
F7          - Mkdir
F8          - Delete
F9          - Menu
F10         - Exit
Ctrl+O      - Shell
Ctrl+\      - Hotlist
Alt+.       - Hidden files
Alt+?       - Find file