#+TITLE: File Manager Options for Wayland — 2026 Evaluation
#+DATE: 2026-06-10
#+DESCRIPTION: GUI + TUI file manager review. Verdict: keep nautilus; add yazi over porting ranger.

* Current state
Ratio + velox run Hyprland (pure Wayland). GUI: nautilus + nautilus-open-any-terminal. Most real file
work happens in Emacs dired/dirvish (previews already wired). ranger exists only on the legacy X11 setup;
the Wayland machines have no TUI file manager.

* GUI field
| Manager      | Toolkit / Wayland                          | Theme fit (Adwaita-dark GTK env)                     | Typed path / keyboard                          | Status mid-2026                                                 |
|--------------+--------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| nautilus     | GTK4 + libadwaita, native Wayland          | Native — libadwaita dark is the house look           | C-l path entry, good type-ahead, sane defaults | Actively developed (GNOME core); Sushi previewer now GTK4       |
| thunar       | GTK3, runs native Wayland                  | Good (GTK3 Adwaita-dark)                             | C-l toggleable path bar, light and quick       | Active (Xfce 4.20, Dec 2024); Xfce Wayland still experimental   |
| dolphin      | Qt6/KF6, first-class Wayland (KDE primary) | Needs adwaita-qt shim; adwaita-qt itself is stagnant | Best-in-class: C-l, split view, terminal panel | Very active, but drags KDE Frameworks deps for one app          |
| nemo         | GTK3, works on Wayland, X11-first heritage | Good (GTK3)                                          | C-l works; Nautilus-3 era ergonomics           | Maintained by Mint (6.4.x); Cinnamon Wayland still experimental |
| pcmanfm-qt   | Qt6 (LXQt 2.x), Wayland OK                 | Same adwaita-qt caveat as dolphin                    | Basic; weakest keyboard story here             | Maintained, slow cadence, deliberately minimal                  |
| cosmic-files | Rust/iced, Wayland-native                  | Own iced theming — ignores both GTK and Qt themes    | Decent shortcuts, still filling gaps           | First stable Dec 2025 (Pop 24.04); fast 1.0.x iteration, young  |

* TUI field
| Manager | Image preview in foot (sixel)                                   | Speed / footprint              | Plugins / zoxide                                     | Status mid-2026                                                |
|---------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------|
| yazi    | Built-in: auto-detects sixel/kitty/ueberzug++; video covers too | Rust, async I/O, fastest here  | Lua plugin system + ya pkg mgr; zoxide built in (z)  | Very active: v26.5.6 (May 2026), monthly releases              |
| ranger  | ueberzug/w3m paths are X11-bound; sixel only via hacks          | Python, slowest of the set     | rifle/rc.conf ecosystem; zoxide via plugin           | Effectively frozen: still 1.9.4, 700+ open issues, no releases |
| lf      | Sixel on by default since r38; you script the previewer         | Go single binary, very fast    | No plugin system — shell scripts; zoxide via wrapper | Active (r38+, 2025-2026 fixes for sixel/tmux)                  |
| nnn     | Via preview-tui plugin + chafa; works but assembly required     | C, tiniest and fastest startup | Shell-script plugin dir; zoxide via plugin           | Active: 5.2 "Blue Hawaii", steady cadence                      |
| broot   | Minimal image support; tree-nav tool, not a previewer           | Rust, fast                     | Verbs/config, not plugins; zoxide overlaps its role  | Maintained; different paradigm (fuzzy tree jump)               |

* Verdict
GUI: keep nautilus. It's the only candidate that is simultaneously native-Wayland, native to the
Adwaita-dark look (libadwaita is the reference implementation of it), actively developed, and already
integrated (open-any-terminal). Dolphin is the only functional upgrade, but it costs the KDE Frameworks
dependency tree and leans on adwaita-qt, which is no longer meaningfully maintained — a bad trade for a
secondary tool in a dired-centric workflow. cosmic-files is the one to re-check in a year: development
pace is high, but it's young and its iced theming won't match the rest of the desktop.

TUI: add yazi; don't port ranger to the Wayland machines. ranger is the clear loser here — frozen at
1.9.4 with X11-bound preview machinery that doesn't work in foot. yazi previews images (and video
covers) in foot via sixel with zero preview scripting, ships zoxide integration, and is the most
actively developed tool in the set. Its role stays narrow — quick browsing and bulk ops in a terminal
or over ssh when Emacs isn't at hand — so the cost is one pacman package. The one caveat: yazi still
labels itself "heavy development, expect breaking changes," so config may need occasional touch-ups; if
that churn grates, lf (sixel-on-by-default, near-zero config surface) is the stable fallback. Skipping
a TUI entirely also remains defensible given dirvish covers previews, but at this price yazi earns the slot.

* Sources
- https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/releases (v26.5.6, 2026-05-05)
- https://yazi-rs.github.io/
- https://github.com/ranger/ranger (no releases; Arch ships 1.9.4)
- https://github.com/gokcehan/lf/releases (r38: sixel default-on)
- https://github.com/jarun/nnn (5.2 "Blue Hawaii")
- https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-File-Previewer-GTK4
- https://9to5linux.com/xfce-4-20-desktop-environment-released-with-experimental-wayland-support
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMIC_desktop (Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS stable, 2025-12-11)
- https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-epoch-2-and-3-roadmap/
- https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo