VIDIR(1)

💅 vidir(1) — the manual, bestie edition ✨

okay so you opened vidir(1) and you're like "what is this little icon" — don't worry, I got you. This is the vidir page from the moreutils crew and it's genuinely one of my faves. Let's go 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

vidir — edit directories and filenames. that's it. that's the whole vibe. literally rename a whole folder from inside your text editor. main character energy fr fr 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

vidir [--verbose] [directory|file|-]...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

vidir lets you edit directories and filenames inside a text editor. iconic behaviour honestly. And if you don't specify any directory at all? It just goes ahead and edits the filenames of the current directory for you. no notes 💖

When you're editing a directory, every single item in that directory shows up on its own numbered line. Those numbers are lowkey the whole trick — that's how vidir keeps track of what items got changed. So:

• delete lines → those files get removed from the directory 🗑️
• edit filenames → those files get renamed ✏️
• switch pairs of numbers → swap those filenames around 🔄

Filenames to be edited can be given as any combination of:

• directories — which get expanded to the non-recursive list of all files within that directory
• files
• - — and if you give this one, vidir reads a list of filenames from stdin and displays those for editing 🎀

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -v, --verbose — verbosely display the actions taken by the program. so it tells you what it's doing, out loud, like a good friend should 👑

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

vidir
vidir *.jpeg

Typical uses. the everyday slay ✨

find | vidir -

Edit subdirectory contents too. And heads up — to delete subdirectories, you delete all their contents and the subdirectory itself in the editor. both. don't forget the second one 🙈

find -type f | vidir -

Edit all files under the current directory and subdirectories. the full sweep, no crumbs left behind 💀

🍓 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🍓

• EDITOR — the editor to use 🖊️
• VISUAL — also supported, to determine what editor to use 👀

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Copyright 2006 by Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>

Licensed under the GNU GPL.

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ngl that's the whole page, you ate that reading session bestie 🌟

okay and the boring-but-important bit at the bottom: this is from moreutils, dated 2025-06-30, and yes it's the VIDIR(1) page. periodt 💜🧚