10 Essential vifm Tricks Every Power User Should Know

Customize vifm: Configurations and Plugins to Boost Productivity

What vifm is

vifm is a keyboard-driven, ncurses-based file manager inspired by vi/vim that provides dual-pane browsing, powerful file operations, and extensive customization through a configuration file (/.vifm/vifmrc) and plugins/scripts.

• vifmrc settings — central config (/.vifm/vifmrc): mappings, options, colors, commands.
• Key mappings — remap keys with :map, :nmap, :imap to add shortcuts or mirror your vim setup.
• Commands & user functions — define custom commands with :command and :cmap to automate tasks.
• Filetype and view rules — use :set and autocommands (augroup/au) to adjust view, sort, and hidden files per directory or pattern.
• Statusline & layout — configure statusline format and dual-pane sizes for more info and focused workflow.
• Colorschemes & UI — create or load colorschemes; tweak icons and display options.
• Integration & external tools — configure external editors, previewers (ranger/less/mediainfo), and terminal multiplexers.
• Plugins & scripts — add scripts (shell, python, lua) to extend behavior (see examples below).

Practical tweaks (examples you can add to ~/.vifm/vifmrc)

• Vim-like keybinds:
  nmap  :leftnmap  :right

• Open files in vim:
  set editor=vimcmap e $EDITOR %f

• Quick archive extraction:
  command! Extract !tar -xvf %f

• Show hidden files by default:
  set hidden

• Custom statusline:
  set statusline=%f %y %m %p%% %l:%c

Useful plugins / script ideas

• Fuzzy file finder — integrate fzf for quick file jumping.
• Git integration — script to show git status and stage/commit files.
• Image/preview pane — use an external previewer to show thumbnails or metadata.
• Batch renamer — a script to open selections in an editor for mass renames.
• Filetype actions — scripts to transcode media, convert documents, or open with preferred apps.

Productivity tips

• Mirror your vim config (mappings, leader key) to reduce context switching.
• Use macros and custom commands for repetitive operations.
• Bind common shell commands (rsync, git, tar) into vifm commands.
• Keep a small, well-organized vifmrc — group related settings and comment heavily.
• Version-control your vifmrc to sync configs across machines.

Where to find more

Check vifm’s manpage and online documentation for full command syntax and examples.