File operations
File operations use the selected entries, or the focused entry when there is no selection. Copy and move use the other pane as their initial destination, which makes the two panes a visible source-and-destination pair.
Create and rename
Section titled “Create and rename”- F2 renames the focused entry.
- F7 creates a directory.
- Create File is available from the command palette.
- Shift + F4 creates a file and opens it in the editor.
Names are validated by the destination filesystem. Rename stays within the current filesystem; backends such as S3 may implement it as a server-side copy followed by deletion.
Case-only and equivalent-spelling renames, such as Foo to foo on a
case-insensitive volume, are allowed when the filesystem identifies both
spellings as the same file.
Copy and move
Section titled “Copy and move”Press F5 to copy or F6 to move. The other pane is the destination. For one source, the dialog also lets you change the leaf name; the destination path itself is read-only. To use a different directory, navigate the other pane there first. Empty names and names containing a separator for the destination filesystem are rejected.
Transfers work across different filesystem types: for example local to S3, SFTP to local, or a remote-session filesystem to the client filesystem. If an item already exists, Newt can ask whether to overwrite, skip, or apply a decision to subsequent conflicts. Directory transfers are scanned before and during execution so the progress display can report counts and bytes.
Move uses a native rename where the source and destination support it. Across filesystems it falls back to copy followed by removal of the source.
Copies preserve permissions when both filesystems provide them. The dialog can also preserve timestamps, owner, and group; those choices are remembered for the next copy or move. Metadata that the source does not provide, or the destination cannot set, is skipped. ZIP, TAR, supported disc images, S3, local filesystems, and SFTP can all supply some metadata when available.
Within one mounted filesystem, Newt refuses a copy whose destination resolves to the source itself, including equivalent spellings on case-insensitive or normalization-insensitive filesystems. This check happens before scanning or offering overwrite, which prevents the source from being truncated.
Delete and trash
Section titled “Delete and trash”Press F8, Delete, or the platform alternative to delete. By default, deletion uses the operating system’s trash on real local filesystems. Press Shift + Delete to bypass trash and delete permanently.
Deleting from a search pane acts on the underlying file, not on a copy of the result.
Deleting a symbolic link removes the link, not the target. This also applies to Windows directory junctions. Recursive deletion and recursive property changes do not descend through these links.
Pack an archive
Section titled “Pack an archive”Press Alt + F5, or choose Pack into archive from the Copy dialog. Newt can create ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.XZ, and TAR.ZST files. ZIP supports optional AES-256 encryption.
Archive output streams directly to its destination. A local directory can therefore be packed straight to S3 or another remote filesystem without creating a complete temporary archive first. Compression levels and the default format are configurable under archive settings.
The archive is created in the other pane. Its name must be a single leaf: separator-containing names are rejected according to that destination filesystem, so navigate the other pane to a subdirectory before packing there.
Properties
Section titled “Properties”Press Alt + Enter to inspect metadata. Depending on the filesystem, this can include timestamps, ownership, Unix permissions, symlink targets, S3 metadata, content type, cache control, storage class, and ACLs.
Editing is limited to properties the current filesystem supports. Archive and disc-image views are read-only.
For a local volume root, Properties also shows the volume type, filesystem, label, target, capacity, used space, and free space when available. You can open the same view by selecting the free-space value in the pane header. On Unix, this describes the mounted volume containing the current directory rather than assuming the root volume.
On Windows, Newt’s file-list context menu ends with Windows Menu for
host-local files. It opens the classic Windows shell menu for the current
selection. Shift + right-click opens it directly; on empty space or
the .. row it applies to the current directory. It is unavailable for remote
or virtual files, and in an elevated session its commands still run as the
normal desktop user.
Calculate directory sizes
Section titled “Calculate directory sizes”Directories normally show DIR instead of walking their contents automatically.
- Mod + Shift + Enter calculates selected or focused directories.
- Shift + Alt + Enter calculates every entry in the current directory.
Totals stream into the Size column and participate in size sorting. Press Escape to stop a running calculation; values already computed remain and are marked partial.
Operation progress
Section titled “Operation progress”Transfers and other long operations show processed items, bytes, throughput, elapsed time, and estimated time remaining when available. Move an operation to the background to keep navigating. Press F10 to cycle the foreground operation when several are active.