Sauva

Terminal Unicode Explorer 🪄

About

Sauva is a terminal application for searching and browsing Unicode code points. It shows Unicode properties and a glyph preview in a responsive TUI.

The bundled data is based on Unicode 17.0.0.

Installation

Cargo

cargo install --locked sauva

Homebrew (macOS)

brew install lusingander/tap/sauva

Downloading a binary

Pre-built binaries are available from the releases page.

Usage

Basic

Run sauva without arguments to open the default code point:

sauva

Options

Sauva - Terminal Unicode Explorer 🪄

Usage: sauva [OPTIONS] [INPUT]

Arguments:
  [INPUT]  Text or code point to inspect

Options:
  -t, --text <TEXT>      Treat the input as literal text, without code point notation parsing
  -g, --graphics <MODE>  Control glyph preview graphics [default: auto] [possible values: auto, force, iterm2, off]
  -h, --help             Print help
  -V, --version          Print version

Specifying INPUT

One character opens its code point directly in the Inspector. A sequence of characters opens the Sequence view, where each constituent code point can be selected and inspected.

sauva あ
sauva 'Á👩‍💻'

Code points can also be given in U+ notation, 0x notation, or as two to six hexadecimal digits.

sauva U+2192
sauva 0x1F600
sauva 1F600

A one-character argument is treated as the character itself. Use a prefix for a one-digit hexadecimal value, such as U+A or 0xA.

An input made entirely of hexadecimal digits keeps the code point interpretation. Use --text to force literal text when the input would otherwise be interpreted as notation:

sauva -t 41
sauva --text U+2192

--text still opens the Inspector directly when its value contains only one code point. Empty text is rejected.

-g, --graphics <MODE>

• auto enables the Kitty graphics protocol for detected kitty and Ghostty terminals.
• force uses the Kitty graphics protocol without terminal detection.
• iterm2 uses the iTerm2 inline image protocol.
• off disables glyph images.

See Compatibility for terminal support.

Config

sauva loads the first applicable configuration path in this order:

1. The path specified by SAUVA_CONFIG_FILE
2. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sauva/config.toml
3. $HOME/.config/sauva/config.toml

If the default file does not exist, built-in settings are used. A missing file specified by SAUVA_CONFIG_FILE, or an invalid configuration file, causes startup to fail.

All settings are optional. The following example shows the main configuration areas:

Configuration example

[color]
fg = "reset"
bg = "reset"

[color.inspector]
section_heading = "cyan"
field_label = "darkgray"

[color.inspector.selection]
fg = "black"
bg = "cyan"

[glyph_preview]
font_families = ["Iosevka", "Noto Sans"]
emoji_font_families = ["Noto Color Emoji"]
fg = "#f5f7fa"
bg = "#00000000"

[ui]
selection_cursor = "▸"
input_cursor = { text = "|" }

UI colors accept ANSI color names, #RRGGBB, or an indexed color from 0 to 255. Glyph image colors accept #RRGGBB and #RRGGBBAA.

The complete configuration structure and defaults are defined in config.schema.json.

Keybindings

These are the main built-in controls. The available controls depend on the current view.

Key	Description
F1	Open or close contextual help
Ctrl+c	Quit from any view
q	Quit from the Inspector, Sequence, or Browse view
Esc	Cancel Search or Browse; quit from the Inspector or Sequence view
h j k l or arrow keys	Move the selection
/	Search by character, code point, or Unicode name
p r b c	Browse planes, ranges, blocks, or code points
Enter	Open the selected item; inspect a code point from Sequence or Browse
Backspace	Return to the previous Browse screen, or return from Inspector to the input Sequence
y	Copy the selected Inspector value

Press F1 to view all controls for the current screen.

Custom keybindings

Keybindings can be replaced per command and context. A command can have multiple keys, and an empty array disables it in that context.

Keybinding example and syntax

[keybindings.global]
help = ["f2"]

[keybindings.inspector]
next_code_point = ["l", "right", "n"]
back = ["backspace"]
browse_planes = []

Keys may be a single character, a named key such as enter, esc, left, or f1, or a modifier followed by one character, such as ctrl-n, alt-j, or shift-g. Conflicting and invalid bindings are rejected at startup.

See config.schema.json for all contexts and command names.

Compatibility

Operating systems

macOS and Linux are supported. macOS uses Core Text for system font lookup. Linux uses Fontconfig when available and falls back to a best-effort font database lookup if Fontconfig cannot be loaded.

Terminal emulators

Glyph previews use the Kitty graphics protocol and its Unicode placeholder feature. The supported terminals are:

• kitty
• Ghostty

Use --graphics force to try the Kitty protocol in another compatible terminal or when automatic detection does not enable it.

The iTerm2 inline image protocol is available through --graphics iterm2, but compatibility and future support are not guaranteed. It is never selected automatically.

Glyph preview fonts

Sauva does not bundle fonts. Available glyphs and the selected font therefore depend on the fonts installed on the system.

For each code point, sauva tries configured normal fonts, the system default text font, configured emoji fonts, and then system fallback fonts. Preferred fonts can be set with glyph_preview.font_families and glyph_preview.emoji_font_families.

Screenshots

Inspector

Browse Plane / Range / Code point

Browse Block

Search

Sequence

License

Sauva is distributed under the MIT License.

The generated Unicode data is derived from the Unicode Character Database. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES and the Unicode License v3 for details.