mini.files lets you rename, create, and delete files by editing directory buffers like text

2026-08-05 (1m ago)5 views

I switched from neo-tree to mini.files in my Neovim config today and the interaction model is completely different — and honestly really clever once it clicks.

Instead of a sidebar with custom keymaps for "rename this file", mini.files opens the directory listing as a regular Neovim buffer. You edit the text, then "save" it, and mini.files figures out what filesystem operations to perform based on what changed.

Basic operations

Rename a file — move your cursor to the filename and edit it with any normal Neovim text motion. ciw to change the word, A to append, whatever. When you're done, press = to apply.

Create a file — add a new line in the directory buffer with the filename you want. Press = to apply, it creates the file.

Create a directory — same as creating a file, but end the name with /. mini.files sees the trailing slash and creates a directory.

Delete a file — dd the line. Press = to apply.

Move or copy a file — yank or cut the line, navigate to a different directory pane (mini.files shows a column-style browser, so you can navigate into subdirs), paste the line there, then apply with =.

The key insight is that nothing happens immediately. You make all your edits as if you're editing text, then = applies all the pending changes at once. If you want to cancel, just close the buffer without applying.

Show all keymaps

g? opens a help float with every available binding. I always forget this exists but it's really useful — it lists things like <CR> to open a file, <BS> to go up a directory, gs to set cwd, etc.

A few things that surprised me

The explorer opens in a column browser style (like macOS Finder's column view), not a tree. Navigating into a directory opens a new column to the right rather than expanding inline. Takes a minute to get used to but it's actually nicer for deep directory structures.

The dotfiles toggle is g. — hides/shows dot-files and dot-dirs. I configured mine to hide dot-dirs by default but show dot-files, since things like .env are useful to see but .git, .idea etc. are just noise.

Renaming and moving both go through the same buffer-edit mechanism, which means if you rename a file that's open in another buffer, mini.files fires a MiniFilesActionRename event that you can hook into for LSP rename updates (Snacks.rename handles this automatically with the LazyVim setup).