Colours

exa’s most prominent feature is its colour scheme. It’s designed for modern, 256-colour terminals, and it’s not shy about it!

If you are using the details view with -l or --long, the values in those columns will be coloured too.

Known file types

exa knows about a lot of file extensions, and will highlight them for you without any configuration. It knows that .jpg files are images, .zip files are compressed, and that files ending in ~ are backups. It’s like having a huge LS_COLORS built-in.

Here’s the full list:

Images

.arw .bmp .cbr .cbz .cr2 .dvi .eps .gif .heif .ico .jpeg .jpg .nef .orf .pbm .pgm .png .pnm .ppm .ps .raw .stl .svg .tif .tiff .webp .xpm

Videos

.avi .flv .heic .m2ts .m2v .mkv .mov .mp4 .mpeg .mpg .ogm .ogv .ts .vob .webm .wmv

Documents

.djvu .doc .docx .dvi .eml .eps .fotd .key .odp .odt .pdf .ppt .pptx .rtf .xls .xlsx

Music

.aac .alac .ape .flac .m4a .mka .mp3 .ogg .opus .wav .wma

Cryptography

.asc .enc .gpg .p12 .pfx .pgp .sig .signature

Immediate

build.gradle, Cargo.toml, CMakeLists.txt, Dockerfile, Justfile, Makefile, Rakefile, SConstruct, and many more!

Temp

.bak .bk .swn .swo .swp .tmp #…# .~

Custom

Make your own!

And here’s what it looks like:

exa /testcases/file-names-exts
#SAVEFILE#       compressed.deb     crypto.asc        image.svg      VIDEO.AVI
backup~          compressed.tar.gz  crypto.signature  lossless.flac  video.wmv
compiled.class   compressed.tar.xz  document.pdf      lossless.wav
compiled.coffee  compressed.tgz     DOCUMENT.XLSX     Makefile
compiled.js      compressed.txz     file.tmp          music.mp3
compiled.o       COMPRESSED.ZIP     IMAGE.PNG         MUSIC.OGG

Compiled file types

When listing a directory, exa will examine files with the same name and will ‘dim’ the ones that look like they’ve been compiled by the others.

Files with the extensions .class, .elc, .hi, .o, and .pyc will always be treated as compiled — these extensions are commonly used as compiler output for various languages.

Additionally, exa will treat another file as compiled if there’s a file with the same name and a suitable extension in the same directory. These are special-cased, due to the rise of languages that compile into other languages, such as CSS or JavaScript:

Source		Compiled
`.sass`, `.less`	←	`.css`
`.coffee`, `.ts`	←	`.js`
`.tex`	←	`.aux`, `.bbl`, `.blg`, `.lof`, `.log`, `.lot`, `.toc`

If your directory has two files, scripts.js and scripts.coffee, exa will assume that the JavaScript file is the compilation output of the CoffeeScript file, and dim it accordingly.
If there is only a scripts.js file present, and no scripts.coffee, then the file will not be highlighted — without a matching file, there’s no way to tell it’s a compilation target.

exa dist/
compiled.class   compiled.css  compiled.o
compiled.coffee  compiled.js

Type indicators

The -F or --classify option puts a type indicator character at the end of special files’ names. The character marks executable files, directories, pipes, links, and sockets.

exa
directory executable file fifo symlink socket

exa --classify
directory/ executable* file fifo| symlink@ socket=

FAQ

What’s an “immediate” file?

If you’re browsing a directory full of source code, it’s useful to see the documentation or build script that “kicks off” the entire project. This is why exa calls them immediate files — they’re meant to be the first file you read or run.

The list of immediate files highlights all README files, as well as the filenames for several common build systems.

A common extension is missing. Can it be added?

Sure! Feel free to create an issue or submit a Pull Request on GitHub. Quite a few of exa’s extensions were added this way.

Can I turn the colours on and off?

The --colours command-line option can be set to always or never to force colours to be always on or always off.

The default behaviour is --colours=automatic, which varies depending on whether exa is being run from a terminal.

What happens when output is not to a terminal?

By default, exa assumes that if you’re running it from a terminal, you want to see the colours, and if you’re not, then you don’t want any ANSI escape codes cluttering up your output.

To turn colours off in your terminal, or to turn them on outside, it, you can use the --colours option detailed above.

Next up: Grid view