elio vs pointer
elio
elio-fm.github.iopointer
github.comSide by side
| Figure | elio | pointer |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Terminal File Managers | 8.5 (#5) | 8.3 (#11) |
| Spec score · File managers | 8.2 (#13) | 8.5 (#8) |
| Archive support | Yes | Yes |
| Dual-pane layout | No | Yes |
| File operations | It supports creating and extracting common archive formats, duplicate finding, and trashing, restoring, or permanently deleting files. | It supports asynchronous copy and move operations and undo for delete, move, rename, copy, symlink, permissions, and bulk rename. |
| File previews | It previews text, code, documents, archives, media, and other file types, with inline image rendering in supported terminals. | It includes syntax highlighting for 20+ languages and inline image previews through kitty, sixel, or w3m protocols. |
| Linux support | Yes | Yes |
| macOS support | Yes | Yes |
| Preview pane | Yes | Yes |
| Remote file access | Yes | Yes |
| Windows support | Yes | No |
Plans
In their own words
elio
elio is a free, open-source terminal file manager for Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted use. Its Places, Files, and Preview panes offer grid and list views, with keyboard and mouse navigation. It previews text, code, documents, archives, media, and other file types; supported terminals can display images inline. File operations include creating and extracting common archives, finding duplicates, and trashing, restoring, or permanently deleting items. Remote file access is supported. Shell wrappers for bash, zsh, fish, and Nushell can return the shell to the browsed directory when elio closes, and an optional zoxide integration opens a picker using recorded directory history. It works without extra preview tools; optional Poppler, FFmpeg, resvg, and 7-Zip tools add preview and archive capabilities. Installation methods are listed for several Linux distributions, macOS through Homebrew, FreeBSD, and Cargo. elio can be configured as a file chooser on Linux and FreeBSD.
pointer
Pointer is a free, open-source terminal file manager for Linux and macOS. It presents files in a two-pane layout with configurable width ratios and border styles, plus previews with syntax highlighting for more than 20 languages and inline image display through kitty, sixel, or w3m protocols. Archives including zip, tar, gz, bz2, xz, rar, and 7z can be browsed and edited as virtual directories. File operations include asynchronous copying and moving, undo for several actions, and deletion with a flag-then-purge process and default confirmation. Pointer supports SSH/SFTP remote browsing, filename and content search, extension or regex filters, bookmarks, tabs, and file-picker mode. JSON-manifest plugins bind external commands to keys. The README describes OpenAI integration and Claude-powered descriptions and sessions. Linux and macOS binaries are listed for x86_64 and aarch64.