Strata, a new open-source file manager written in Rust and built with GTK4, has reached its first stable release, version 1.0. It is designed primarily for Omarchy, the Arch-based Linux desktop setup, but of course, also works on other compatible Linux distros.
The application aims to offer an alternative to established file managers such as Dolphin, Nautilus, and Thunar, with a particular emphasis on keyboard navigation, performance, and file previews.
One of Strata’s interesting features is its support for three file browsing layouts: the familiar icon grid, a traditional list view, and Miller columns. Miller columns display multiple directory levels side by side, making it easier to navigate deeply nested folders without losing track of their structure.
Keyboard navigation is another major selling point. Strata supports Vim-style controls, customizable shortcuts, and fuzzy filename searching, allowing users to quickly find files without repeatedly switching between the keyboard and mouse.
The file manager includes an extensive preview system supporting images, RAW photos, PDFs, Markdown documents, source code, audio, and video files. Previews using native file parsers are isolated with Bubblewrap, limiting their access to system resources for added security.
Strata handles common file operations such as copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files. It also supports archive browsing and extraction, removable drives, and remote locations through GIO/GVfs, including SMB and SFTP connections.
Regarding customization, the application offers a selection of themes, adjustable interface settings, and automatic theme synchronization with Omarchy. It can also be configured as the default file manager and, through optional portal integration, used as a system file chooser.
With version 1.0, the developers focused on polishing the application, with notable improvements including keyboard-accessible tabs with session restoration, better drag-and-drop handling, optimizations for large directories, improved file sorting, additional translations, and numerous fixes related to navigation, previews, and file operations.
On the performance side, the project’s official website includes benchmarks against Dolphin, Nautilus, Nemo, Thunar, and Krusader, showing promising memory usage when working with directories containing many files. However, the developers acknowledge some competing file managers remain faster at generating common image thumbnails.
Of course, these are project-published benchmarks, so independent testing would be needed to determine how Strata compares in everyday use.
Currently, Strata 1.0 is available for x86_64 and AArch64 Linux systems. Arch Linux and Omarchy are its primary supported environments, although other distributions can run it if they meet the required dependencies, including GTK 4.12 or newer and glibc 2.39 or newer for the precompiled binaries.
For more information, installation instructions, and source code, visit the project’s GitHub repository.
