Navigate and select

Each pane has its own location, focus, selection, sort order, filter, and history. Commands apply to the active pane; press Tab to switch panes.

Open a location

• Press Enter on a directory to enter it.
• Press Backspace or open .. to go to the parent directory.
• On Linux and Windows, press Ctrl + Backspace to jump to the current filesystem root. On a Windows filesystem this is the current drive or share root. The command is unbound on macOS, where Command + Backspace moves files to Trash; bind Go to Root in Settings if you want a shortcut there.
• Press Mod + L to type a path. The dialog accepts absolute and relative paths, ~, environment variables, and mounted paths such as s3://bucket/key.
• Path separators follow the filesystem in the pane, not the computer showing Newt. On a Unix-style filesystem, / starts at its root and \ is an ordinary filename character. On a Windows-style filesystem, a leading \ or / starts at the current drive or share root. This also applies when the filesystem belongs to a remote session.
• When a Windows filesystem is mounted, press Shift plus a drive letter to jump to that drive’s root. This also works for a Windows filesystem exposed by a remote session, regardless of the computer displaying Newt.
• Click a breadcrumb segment to return to that part of the path. Click the final segment to open the path dialog.
• Press Mod + Left or Mod + Right to open the focused directory in a particular pane.
• Press Mod + . to make the other pane show the active pane’s directory.
• Press Mod + U to swap the two panes. Each pane keeps its location, selection, sorting, filter, calculated sizes, and navigation history. The active directory moves to the other side with its pane.

Opening a regular file with Enter uses the system application. Opening a recognized archive or disc image mounts it in the pane. Entering a directory symlink normally preserves the link path; use Shift + Enter to navigate to its resolved target instead.

Navigate history

Each pane keeps an independent timeline. Tap Alt + Left or Alt + Right for a single history step. Hold Alt and continue pressing the arrow keys to preview more entries, then release Alt to open the highlighted location.

Press Mod + Y to open the same history as a persistent dialog. Entries that refer to unmounted filesystems remain visible but cannot be opened. Removing old archive entries from history can allow their temporary mounts to be released.

Focus and selection

The focused row is the cursor. A selection is the set of operation targets. When nothing is selected, most file operations use the focused row.

Action	Keyboard
Move focus	↑, ↓, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End
Toggle the focused item and advance	Insert
Extend the selection through every row passed over	Shift + movement key
Select all visible entries	Mod + A
Clear the selection	Mod + D
Invert the visible selection	Numpad *
Select or deselect by pattern	Numpad + / -

With the pointer, use platform-standard modifier-click and shift-click selection. Drag an empty part of the list to make a rectangular selection. The .. row can be focused but is never selected or used as an operation target.

Select by Pattern and Deselect by Pattern accept a case-insensitive glob such as *.rs or IMG_*.{jpg,png}. Start a pattern with / to use a case-insensitive regular expression, for example /^report-\d+\.pdf$. The dialog reports the number of matches as you type. It only adds or removes matching entries that are visible under the current filter; other selections are left alone.

Select Same Extension is available from the Command Palette with no default shortcut. It adds visible files whose extension matches the focused file, ignoring case. When a directory is focused, it selects other visible directories instead of extensionless files.

The pattern and invert defaults use the numeric keypad so the main-row +, -, and * remain available for quick search. On a keyboard without a numeric keypad, assign alternatives in the Keybindings tab.

Sort and arrange columns

Click a column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse the order. Press Mod + Shift + S for the keyboard sort menu. The menu can change the sort key, reverse it, and toggle folders-first ordering.

Right-click a column heading to show or hide columns. Drag headings to reorder them and drag separators to resize them. Double-click a separator to fit that column to the currently rendered rows. Column order is a preference; widths are remembered as interface state.

Columns adapt to the current filesystem. Unix filesystems can show User, Group, and Mode; Windows filesystems can show Attributes. The Attributes column uses letters for read-only (R), hidden (H), system (S), archive (A), reparse point (L), compressed (C), and encrypted (E). A configured column remains in the global order when it is hidden because the current filesystem does not provide that metadata.

Exact byte counts and timestamps use the locale selected in Settings, or the system regional format by default. The Size column can instead show prefixed values, using either decimal SI units such as 1.5 GB or binary IEC units such as 1.4 GiB.

Hidden files and refresh

Press Mod + H to toggle hidden files in both panes. Local panes watch the filesystem and refresh when it changes. Press Mod + R if you bind the Refresh command; it has no default binding because Ctrl + R is Quick Connect.

See Search and filter for narrowing the current listing or producing recursive results.