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Wayfinder

An accessible GTK4 file manager built in Rust, designed for tiled window managers and screen reader users.

Wayfinder puts accessibility first. Every element is navigable with a keyboard, announced by Orca, and designed for users who may never touch a mouse.

Features

  • Full keyboard navigation with arrow keys, Tab cycling, type-ahead file search, and wrapping menus
  • Screen reader support via Orca with contextual announcements for every action
  • Sidebar with places, bookmarks (Ctrl+D), mounted volumes, and editable layout
  • Context menu with accessible roles, submenu navigation (Right/Left arrows), and dynamic actions
  • Custom actions loaded from .desktop files -- extract archives, compress files, GPG encrypt/decrypt, and more
  • Nautilus scripts support (~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/)
  • FMA compatibility (FileManager-Actions .desktop files from /usr/share/file-manager/actions/)
  • Drag and drop between Wayfinder and other applications
  • Tab path completion in the location bar with ~ expansion
  • Volume management -- mount, unmount, and eject removable media from the sidebar
  • D-Bus FileManager1 service so other applications can open folders in Wayfinder
  • Copy/move with progress dialog including time estimates and cancellation
  • Replace/Skip/Rename conflict dialog when pasting over existing files
  • FUSE mount support -- rclone, sshfs, and other FUSE mounts work without freezing. Async file monitoring, trash fallback to permanent delete, cross-device directory move
  • Session restore -- all open windows and their directories are remembered on exit and restored on next launch
  • Font zoom -- Ctrl+Plus/Minus/0 to zoom in, out, or reset (50%–300%, persisted)
  • Breadcrumb path bar -- clickable path segments for quick navigation, F4 or header button to toggle
  • Recent files -- sidebar entry showing recently opened files
  • Batch rename -- find/replace across multiple selected files with live preview
  • Permission editor -- interactive chmod in the Properties dialog with checkboxes and octal entry
  • List and grid views switchable with Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2
  • Bin integration -- move to bin, restore, empty, with accessible confirmation dialogs

Requirements

  • GTK 4.14 or later
  • Rust 1.70+
  • gvfs and udisks2 for volume management
  • Optional: bsdtar, zip, gpg, seahorse, zenity for context menu actions

Building

cargo build --release --bin wayfinder

The binary is at target/release/wayfinder. Copy it to ~/.local/bin/ or /usr/bin/.

To install the bundled context menu actions:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/wayfinder/actions
cp data/actions/*.desktop ~/.local/share/wayfinder/actions/

Or for system-wide installation:

install -Dm755 target/release/wayfinder /usr/bin/wayfinder
install -Dm644 data/actions/*.desktop -t /usr/share/wayfinder/actions/

Usage

wayfinder                    # Restores previous session (or opens home directory)
wayfinder /path/to/folder    # Opens a specific directory

Keyboard shortcuts

Key Action
Enter Open file or folder
Backspace Go to parent directory
Alt+Left Go back
Alt+Right Go forward
Alt+Up Go to parent directory
Ctrl+L Focus location bar
Tab (in location bar) Path completion
Ctrl+D Bookmark current folder
Delete (on bookmark) Remove bookmark
Ctrl+Up/Down (on bookmark) Reorder bookmark
Ctrl+H Toggle hidden files
Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2 Switch to grid / list view
F3 Toggle sidebar
F4 Toggle breadcrumb bar
Ctrl+F Search files
Ctrl+A Select all
Space Toggle selection on focused file
Shift+Space Range selection
Escape Clear selection
Ctrl+C Copy (all windows)
Ctrl+X Cut (all windows)
Ctrl+V Paste (all windows)
Ctrl+Shift+C Copy (this window only)
Ctrl+Shift+X Cut (this window only)
Ctrl+Shift+V Paste (this window only)
F2 Rename
Ctrl+Shift+F2 Batch rename (multiple selected files)
Ctrl+Shift+N New folder
Delete Move to Bin
Shift+Delete Delete permanently
Ctrl+Z Undo trash (restore last trashed)
Ctrl+N New window
Ctrl+` Open terminal in current directory
Ctrl+I Properties
Shift+F10 / Menu Context menu
Ctrl+Plus / Ctrl+= Zoom in
Ctrl+Minus Zoom out
Ctrl+0 Reset zoom
Ctrl+? Keyboard shortcuts window
Tab Cycle focus: file list → navigation buttons → location bar
Type any letters Jump to matching file

Custom actions

Wayfinder loads context menu actions from .desktop files in these directories (first match wins):

  1. ~/.local/share/wayfinder/actions/ -- user actions
  2. ~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/ -- FMA user actions
  3. /usr/share/file-manager/actions/ -- FMA system actions (apps install here)
  4. /usr/share/wayfinder/actions/ -- system Wayfinder actions
  5. /usr/local/share/wayfinder/actions/ -- system Wayfinder actions (alternate prefix)
  6. ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts/ -- Nautilus scripts

Action file format:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Extract Here
TryExec=bsdtar
Exec=sh -c 'cd "$(dirname "$1")" && bsdtar xf "$1"' _ %f
MimeType=application/zip;application/x-tar;

TryExec makes the action invisible if the command is not installed. MimeType restricts which files the action appears for (omit for all files). Exec supports %f (single file), %F (multiple files), %u (single URI), %U (multiple URIs).

D-Bus integration

Wayfinder registers as org.freedesktop.FileManager1. Other applications can open folders:

gdbus call --session \
  -d org.freedesktop.FileManager1 \
  -o /org/freedesktop/FileManager1 \
  -m org.freedesktop.FileManager1.ShowFolders \
  "['file:///home']" ""

Sidebar configuration

Right-click or press Menu on the sidebar to access "Edit Sidebar". Toggle places on or off, and reorder with Ctrl+Up/Down. Configuration is saved in ~/.config/wayfinder/sidebar.

Bookmarks are stored in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks, compatible with Nautilus and other GTK file managers.

Architecture

Wayfinder is a pure Rust GTK4 application using the gtk-rs bindings. No libadwaita dependency.

src/
  app/           Application subclass, D-Bus startup
  window/        Main window, keyboard navigation, actions
  context_menu/  Accessible popover menu with submenu support
  sidebar/       Places, bookmarks, volumes, edit dialog
  file_model/    Directory loading, sorting, filtering, file monitor
  file_object/   GObject data model for file entries
  file_ops/      Copy, move, trash, delete with progress and conflict dialogs
  views/         List view (ColumnView) and grid view with drag sources
  actions/       Custom action loading and execution
  dbus/          org.freedesktop.FileManager1 service
  navigation/    Back/forward/up history stack
  search/        File name search/filter
  shortcuts/     Keyboard shortcut registration
  properties/    File properties and permission editor
  clipboard/     Global and window-local clipboard
  state.rs       Persistent state (window size, sort, zoom, sidebar, session restore)
  portal/        XDG Desktop Portal file chooser backend (separate binary)

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later