Manage Files With Midnight Commander
Use a classic two-panel TUI for copying, moving and editing files.
Run mc to open Midnight Commander; use Tab to switch panels and F-keys for actions.
01Command
Command
$ mc02What it does
Midnight Commander is a long-standing text file manager with two panels, a built-in editor, viewer and archive support. Function keys map to copy, move, delete and mkdir, and it can open remote filesystems over SFTP or SMB.
03Risk
!Warning: Delete moves files to a trash-like menu only if configured; otherwise F8 removes them permanently.
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- Midnight CommanderEvidence: Official site documenting panels, editor and viewer.
- Debian package: mcEvidence: Installs Midnight Commander, a full-featured two-pane text file manager.
Last verified: 2026-09-20 · Category: Files & Folders
06Related solutions
Search text recursively in a directory with grep
Find every occurrence of a pattern across all files in a tree, printed as file:line:number matches.
Extract a .tar.gz archive with tar
Unpack a gzipped tarball into the current directory while printing each file as it is extracted.
Change file permissions with chmod
Add or remove read, write, and execute permission for the owner, group, or others using symbolic or octal modes.