The lightweight terminal file manager nnn has been updated to version 5.3, codenamed “Mai Tai,” introducing a native preview pane, improved fuzzy filtering, new plugins, and several usability and performance refinements.
One notable addition is the new native preview pane, opened with the P key and automatically working with .npreview. Until now, preview functionality depended largely on plugins, so integrating it directly should make file inspection more convenient for users who prefer a leaner setup.
This release also improved fuzzy filtering. The matching logic now improves scoring, ranking, and character arbitration, while matched characters can be displayed in a dimmed style. This also works with regular string filtering, making it easier to see why an entry matched the current query.
On top of that, the native prompt is now more useful. Pressing Tab cycles through entries in the current directory, while / immediately enters a directory if its name exactly matches the active filter. Additionally, Alt-Esc quits the current context regardless of whether a filter is active.
There are a few under-the-hood improvements as well. nnn now lazy-loads plugins only when requested, and ncurses rendering is optimized using leaveok(). Linking against libreadline is disabled by default in this release, but users can enable it at build time with make O_NORL=0.
Meanwhile, the plugin collection has grown. A new stats plugin displays complete file information in a pager, while tnp provides a simple terminal notepad. The dragdrop plugin gains support for Kitty’s drag-and-drop functionality, and nmount can now unmount all external USB partitions with u. It also remembers the previous prompt input when pressing the Up arrow and clears it with Down.
Several existing plugins and integrations also received fixes. For example, preview-tui now clears stale Kitty graphics placements after closing video previews, while preview-tabbed gets corrected shell quoting.
Finally, the release resolves many issues affecting context switching, selections, sessions, path handling, and shell argument escaping. nnn will also no longer automatically enter directories that the user does not have permission to read, while additional checks have been added for session header fields.
For additional details, see the changelog.
