exa a modern version of ‘ls’

See also

Rationale

exa is a modern replacement for the command-line program ls that ships with Unix and Linux operating systems, with more features and better defaults.

It uses colours to distinguish file types and metadata. It knows about symlinks, extended attributes, and Git. And it’s small, fast, and just one single binary.

By deliberately making some decisions differently, exa attempts to be a more featureful, more user-friendly version of ls

Options

exa’s options are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike ls ’s.

Display Options

  • -1 , –oneline : display one entry per line

  • -G , –grid : display entries as a grid (default)

  • -l , –long : display extended details and attributes

  • -R , –recurse : recurse into directories

  • -T , –tree : recurse into directories as a tree

  • -x , –across : sort the grid across, rather than downwards

  • –colo[u]r : when to use terminal colours

  • –colo[u]r-scale : highlight levels of file sizes distinctly

Filtering Options

  • -a , –all : show hidden and ‘dot’ files

  • -d , –list-dirs : list directories like regular files

  • -L , –level=(depth) : limit the depth of recursion

  • -r , –reverse : reverse the sort order

  • -s , –sort=(field) : which field to sort by

  • –group-directories-first : list directories before other files

  • -D , –only-dirs : list only directories

  • –git-ignore : ignore files mentioned in .gitignore

  • -I , –ignore-glob=(globs) : glob patterns (pipe-separated) of files to ignore

Pass the --all option twice to also show the . and .. directories.

Long View Options

These options are available when running with –long ( -l ):

  • -b , –binary : list file sizes with binary prefixes

  • -B , –bytes : list file sizes in bytes, without any prefixes

  • -g , –group : list each file’s group

  • -h , –header : add a header row to each column

  • -H , –links : list each file’s number of hard links

  • -i , –inode : list each file’s inode number

  • -m , –modified : use the modified timestamp field

  • -S , –blocks : list each file’s number of file system blocks

  • -t , –time=(field) : which timestamp field to use

  • -u , –accessed : use the accessed timestamp field

  • -U , –created : use the created timestamp field

  • ** @ ** , –extended : list each file’s extended attributes and sizes

  • –git : list each file’s Git status, if tracked or ignored

  • –time-style : how to format timestamps

  • Valid –color options are always , automatic , and never .

  • Valid sort fields are accessed , created , extension , Extension , inode , modified , name , Name , size , type , and none . Fields starting with a capital letter sort uppercase before lowercase. The modified field has the aliases date , time , and newest , while its reverse has the aliases age and oldest .

  • Valid time fields are modified , accessed , and created .

  • Valid time styles are default , iso , long-iso , and full-iso .