# File browser — Liu Terminal

> Liu Terminal file browser. Sidebar tree follows your active tab cwd with OSC 7 integration and remote SFTP support.

URL: https://liu.software/docs/file-browser/  
Language: en  
Updated: 2026-10-17

A sidebar tree and optional full tab for browsing the workspace next to your shell. Local paths and remote SFTP trees share one UI; opening a file picks a viewer automatically — Markdown, code, plain text, images, or a knowledge graph of notes in the folder.

**Under rewrite.** Core logic lives in src/ui/filebrowser.c and src/ui/fileops.c; Markdown rendering hooks into src/ui/markdown/. Formats and viewer APIs are still moving — open an issue before sending a PR that touches them.

## Open it

⌘ K → Toggle File Browser shows or hides the sidebar tree. The browser follows the active terminal tab's cwd when OSC 7 is wired into your shell prompt; otherwise Liu falls back to proc\_pidinfo (macOS) or /proc/\<pid\>/cwd (Linux).

You can also detach the browser into its own tab (file-browser tab type) from the tab bar, or open the Notes Vault folder with ⌘ K → Open Vault. Settings → Notes Vault sets the vault path used by Open Note, Graph View and Search Notes.

## View modes

Clicking a file opens the right-hand viewer pane (or a viewer-only layout for graph/markdown). Liu picks a mode from the extension:

- **Markdown** — .md / .markdown → styled renderer (see Markdown page).
- **Code** — syntax-highlighted source with an optional editor.
- **Text / image / binary** — plain text editor, GPU image preview, or a hex-style dump for unknown types.
- **Graph** — force-directed link graph of .md files in a folder (Vault or current directory).

## File operations

Multi-select with ⌘-click and shift-click range fill. Context actions cover rename, delete, copy/move (including cross-pane drags between local and SFTP when both sides are mounted), and create file/folder prompts. SFTP listings run libssh2 in blocking scope so readdir does not truncate on EAGAIN.

## Palette hooks

- `Open Note` — markdown quick switcher across the Notes Vault.
- `Search Notes` — full-text search inside vault markdown files.
- `Go to Heading` — outline picker for the open markdown doc.
- `Graph View` / `Graph Current Folder` — open the knowledge graph for the vault or the active directory.

[Next Code Editor →](https://liu.software/docs/code-editor.md)