Flea

The fastest GUI file manager on Linux.
Keyboard-first. Built for Omarchy.

Install · Views · Performance · Keyboard · Releases

Flea combines a Rust backend with a Quickshell interface that follows your Omarchy theme. Large directories stay responsive: the window loads rows and requests thumbnails as you need them.

• Three views. List, columns and grid, with tabs and natural filename sorting.
• Quick Look. Press Space for images, PDFs, text, media and archive contents.
• File operations. Copy, move, rename, trash, compress and extract, with an undo journal.
• Network and sharing. SMB, SFTP, FTPS, WebDAV, NFS, Dropbox and Taildrop.
• Devices. USB drives, phones and cameras over MTP, PTP and AFC, mounted from the rail.
• Desktop integration. Default file manager, “Show in folder” and Open/Save dialogs.
• Your settings. Omarchy text sizes, configurable menus and Default, Vim, Mac or Windows keys.

An iPhone lists once it has been unlocked and trusted on this machine: AFC needs the pairing record that leaves behind, not an unlocked screen every time. Pairing also puts the phone on its tethering USB configuration, so iOS shows Personal Hotspot as active while it is plugged in, and Flea never uses it. If this machine should never route through the phone, tell NetworkManager so with a conf.d drop-in carrying unmanaged-devices=driver:ipheth; that is your call, not the package's.

Install

omarchy pkg add flea

Make Flea your default file manager, file chooser and the app opened by Super+Shift+F:

flea --default
systemctl --user restart xdg-desktop-portal

Update through Omarchy:

omarchy update

File chooser only, development package and removal

Use Flea for portal Open/Save dialogs without changing your default file manager:

flea --picker
systemctl --user restart xdg-desktop-portal

For the rolling development build:

omarchy pkg aur add flea-git

Before removing Flea, undo its desktop integration:

flea --default off
omarchy pkg drop flea

If you previously pinned another directory handler, restore that handler explicitly. Installation details cover dependencies, desktop integration and removal.

Views

List for file details. Grid for photos and clips. Columns for browsing folders with a preview beside them.

Space opens Quick Look from any view. Page through a PDF, play media or inspect an archive.

Performance

Measured on 8 September 2026, using the source tree released as 0.1.6. Cold caches, three runs per app, medians below. Seven GUI apps on the same Omarchy machine.

100,000 files

Flea led this run in settled time, window memory and process-tree CPU. PCManFM mapped its window sooner.

File manager	First window	Settled	Window PSS	CPU
Flea	749 ms	1.21 s	88.0 MiB	0.89 s
Strata	632 ms	1.67 s	93.9 MiB	1.39 s
Dolphin	699 ms	5.43 s	211.2 MiB	8.97 s
Nemo	780 ms	22.23 s	459.6 MiB	25.34 s
Thunar	534 ms	22.72 s	346.0 MiB	22.33 s
PCManFM	415 ms	35.76 s	109.9 MiB	24.77 s
Nautilus	798 ms	79.83 s	335.1 MiB	18.61 s

2,000 mixed files

The apps produced different amounts of thumbnail work, so settled time and CPU are not ranked. These are observations, not an equal-work speed comparison.

File manager	First window	Settled	Window PSS	CPU	Thumbnails
Flea	794 ms	2.49 s	102.9 MiB	1.23 s	36
Dolphin	682 ms	14.28 s	98.8 MiB	68.18 s	552
Nautilus	857 ms	16.95 s	172.4 MiB	12.54 s	541
Nemo	788 ms	3.36 s	53.7 MiB	5.25 s	60
PCManFM	389 ms	Timed out	38.9 MiB	90.19 s	604
Strata	610 ms	7.83 s	87.2 MiB	2.31 s	205
Thunar	534 ms	12.88 s	41.1 MiB	7.22 s	221

“First window” records compositor registration. “Settled” means 500 ms without process-tree CPU activity; neither measures input readiness. PSS covers the window process, excluding helpers and GPU memory. Flea's separate backend used a median 5.3 MiB on the large listing and 2.1 MiB on media. CPU includes the process tree; shared libraries affect PSS. PCManFM did not settle in any media run. Results describe this machine and workload.

Method · Run details and TUI results · Scale CSV · Media CSV

Keyboard

Press ? for the full keymap, or , to change settings.

Action	Keys
Move / parent / enter	j k / h / l
Open with the default app	Enter
Quick Look	Space
Select / extend selection	v / Shift + arrows
Copy / cut / paste	y x p, or Ctrl+C Ctrl+X Ctrl+V
Rename / trash / undo	r or F2 / dd or Delete / z
New folder	Ctrl+Shift+N
Search / filter the list	f / /
Enter a path	: or Ctrl+L
List / columns / grid	Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2 / Ctrl+3
New tab / close tab / switch tab	t / w / 1–9
Open terminal / context menu	Ctrl+T / m
Show hidden files	.

The Windows preset uses Ctrl+Shift+1/2/3 for views. Menu visibility does not disable shortcuts. See the full key table for preset bindings and pointer actions.

Build

Requires Omarchy, Quickshell 0.3.1 or newer, and Rust. See installation details for runtime and optional dependencies.

cargo build --release
FLEA_UI="$PWD/ui" ./target/release/flea --gui

Pass a directory to open it, or --select <path> to reveal a file. The terminal interface is not implemented yet.

./tests/run-all.sh

The headless runner builds both profiles and reports suites that need a display, credentials or a package. The test suites cover file operations, previews, persistence and input; the protocol guide documents the backend.

Support

If this saved you an afternoon, you can sponsor me on GitHub or buy me a coffee.

Licence

MIT.