Organising files

Select

A click or an arrow selects; Shift extends; Ctrl+click adds or removes one. Drag from an empty spot to select a rectangle. CtrlA selects all, CtrlShiftI inverts, Esc clears. The footer says how many are selected and what they weigh.

Copy, move and drop

• Copy, cut, paste: CtrlC, CtrlX, CtrlV. What waits for a paste is dimmed and counted in the footer. With two panes, ShiftF5 copies the selection to the other pane and ShiftF6 moves it.
• Drag and drop: files dropped on a folder ask whether to move, copy or link them. Hold Shift to move, Ctrl to copy or CtrlShift to link without the question (Settings › General can turn it off). A dropped archive can be extracted instead. Dropped on a sidebar place, files go where that place says: into a folder, the Trash, or onto a tag.
• Long copies show their progress with Pause and Cancel. Quitting while one runs asks first, then takes back what it left half done.
• Copies you can trust: onto a USB drive, the progress is what is really written, and the copy ends once the files are on the drive. A copy that needs more room than there is asks before it starts. Hard links stay links.

Rename

F2 renames a file in place. With several selected, F2 (or CtrlF2) renames them together from a template, an optional regex and a letter case (CtrlK), with every new name shown before you apply it.

Edit as text (CtrlE) opens the folder’s names in your editor ($VISUAL or $EDITOR). Rename, move or delete lines there, save, and what you changed comes back as a plan.

More from a file’s menu

• New folder: CtrlShiftN. Open with another app: ShiftEnter.
• Copy paths: CtrlShiftC. Run Command… runs a shell command on the selection in a terminal.
• Extract Here extracts an archive into a folder beside it.
• Find Similar searches for files of the same kind, day, size or tags.

Delete, and the Trash

Delete moves to the Trash. ShiftDelete deletes for good, after asking, since it can’t be undone; it says what stays on the disk when a file has other names.

The Trash, in the sidebar, lists what every trash holds, with where each file came from and when it was deleted. Restore puts a file back where it was; drag or paste it out to put it somewhere else. Empty is in its bar.

The Shelf

The Shelf gathers files from anywhere, to move, copy or trash together later. CtrlShiftB adds the selection. Its buttons move or copy what it holds to the other pane; Delete there takes files off the Shelf, not off the disk.

Undo and plans

Undo (CtrlZ) and Redo (CtrlShiftZ) cover renames, moves, copies, files sent to the Trash, new folders, tags and notes, in order. Each change says what it did in a notice at the bottom, with Undo beside it. The history lasts while Skwir runs. Permanent deletion and emptying the Trash cannot be undone.

A change to many files, and anything an agent or a plugin proposes, comes as a plan: the steps it will take, each checked against the disk and marked pending, already done or in conflict. Enter applies it, Esc dismisses it. Applying a plan twice changes nothing the second time.