🧹 NoxDir

NoxDir is a high-performance, cross-platform command-line tool for visualizing and exploring your file system usage. It detects mounted drives or volumes and presents disk usage metrics through a responsive, keyboard-driven terminal UI. Designed to help you quickly locate space hogs and streamline your cleanup workflow. Supports: Windows, macOS, and Linux.

📦 Installation

🍺 Homebrew

Stable release:

brew tap crumbyte/noxdir
brew install --cask noxdir

Nightly release:

brew tap crumbyte/noxdir
brew uninstall --cask noxdir # If the stable version was installed previously
brew install --cask noxdir-nightly

Arch based Linux distros

pacman -S noxdir

NixOS / Nix

NoxDir can be installed either directly from nixpkgs or used via flake:

From nixpkgs (unstable channel):

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.noxdir

Or in your configuration.nix:

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  noxdir
];

Using flake:

nix run github:crumbyte/noxdir

Or add to your flake.nix:

{
  inputs.noxdir.url = "github:crumbyte/noxdir";
}

Other Linux distros

curl -s https://crumbyte.github.io/noxdir/scripts/install.sh | bash

curl -s https://crumbyte.github.io/noxdir/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- v0.6.0

Pre-compiled Binaries

Obtain the latest optimized binary from the Releases page. The application is self-contained and requires no installation process.

Go install (Go 1.24+)

go install github.com/crumbyte/noxdir@latest

Build from source (Go 1.24+)

git clone https://github.com/crumbyte/noxdir.git
cd noxdir
make build

./bin/noxdir

🛠 Usage

Just run in the terminal:

noxdir

The interactive interface initializes immediately without configuration requirements.

🚩 Flags

NoxDir accepts flags on a startup. Here's a list of currently available CLI flags:

Usage:
  noxdir [flags]

Flags:
      --clear-cache           Delete all cache files from the application's directory.

                              Example: --clear-cache (provide a flag)

      --color-schema string   Set the color schema configuration file. The file contains a custom
                              color settings for the UI elements.

  -x, --exclude strings       Exclude specific directories from scanning. Useful for directories
                              with many subdirectories but minimal disk usage (e.g., node_modules).

                              NOTE: The check targets any string occurrence. The excluded directory
                              name can be either an absolute path or only part of it. In the last case,
                              all directories whose name contains that string will be excluded from
                              scanning.

                              Example: --exclude="node_modules,Steam\appcache"
                              (first rule will exclude all existing "node_modules" directories)
  -h, --help                  help for noxdir
  -d, --no-empty-dirs         Excludes all empty directories from the output. The directory is
                              considered empty if it or its subdirectories do not contain any files.

                              Even if the specific directory represents the entire tree structure of
                              subdirectories, without a single file, it will be completely skipped.

                              Default value is "false".

                              Example: --no-empty-dirs (provide a flag)

      --no-hidden             Excludes all hidden files and directories from the output. The entry is
                              considered hidden if its name starts with a dot, e.g., ".git".

                              Default value is "false".

                              Example: --no-hidden (provide a flag)

  -r, --root string           Start from a predefined root directory. Instead of selecting the target
                              drive and scanning all folders within, a root directory can be provided.
                              In this case, the scanning will be performed exclusively for the specified
                              directory, drastically reducing the scanning time.

                              Providing an invalid path results in a blank application output. In this
                              case, a "backspace" still can be used to return to the drives list.
                              Also, all trailing slash characters will be removed from the provided
                              path.

                              Example: --root="C:\Program Files (x86)"
      --simple-color          Use a simplified color schema without emojis and glyphs.

                              Example: --simple-color (provide a flag)

  -l, --size-limit string     Define size limits/boundaries for files that should be shown in the
                              scanner output. Files that do not fit in the provided limits will be
                              skipped.

                              The size limits can be defined using format "<size><unit>:<size><unit>
                              where "unit" value can be: KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, and "size" is a positive
                              numeric value. For example: "1GB:5GB".

                              Both values are optional. Therefore, it can also be an upper bound only
                              or a lower bound only. These are the valid flag values: "1GB:", ":10GB"

                              NOTE: providing this flag will lead to inaccurate sizes of the
                              directories, since the calculation process will include only files
                              that meet the boundaries. Also, this flag cannot be applied to the
                              directories but only to files within.

                              Example:
                                --size-limit="3GB:20GB"
                                --size-limit="3MB:"
                                --size-limit=":1TB"

  -c, --use-cache             Force the application to cache the data. With cache enabled, the full
                              file system scan will be performed only once. After that, the cache will be
                              used as long as the flag is provided.

                              The cache will always store the last session data. In order to update the
                              cache and the application's state, use the "r" (refresh) command on a
                              target directory.

                              Default value is "false".

                              Example: -c|--use-cache (provide a flag)

  -v, --version              Print the application version and exit.

🔧 Configuration File

On first launch, the application automatically generates a simple configuration file. This file allows you to define default behaviors without needing to pass flags every time.

The configuration file is created at:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\.noxdir\settings.json (e.g., C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\.noxdir\settings.json)
• Linux/macOS: ~/.noxdir/settings.json

The created configurations file already contains all available settings and has the following structure:

{
  "colorSchema": "",
  "exclude": null,
  "noEmptyDirs": false,
  "noHidden": false,
  "simpleColor": false,
  "useCache": false,
  "bindings": {
    "driveBindings": {
      "levelDown": []
    },
    "dirBindings": {
      "levelUp": null,
      "levelDown": null,
      "delete": null,
      "topFiles": null,
      "topDirs": null,
      "filesOnly": null,
      "dirsOnly": null,
      "nameFilter": null,
      "chart": null,
      "diff": null,
      "toggleSelectAll": null,
      "toggleSelection": null
    },
    "explore": null,
    "quit": null,
    "refresh": null,
    "help": null,
    "diff": null,
    "config": null
  }
}

Values follow the same format and behavior as CLI flags. For example:

{
  "exclude": "node_modules,Steam\\appcache",
  "colorSchema": "custom_schema.json",
  "noEmptyDirs": true,
  "noHidden": false,
  "simpleColor": true,
  "useCache": false
}

👉 If you cannot find the configuration file you can open it right from the application using % key binding.

🗂️ Caching for Faster Scanning

Scanning can take time, especially on volumes with many small files and directories (e.g., log folders or node_modules). To improve performance in such cases, NoxDir supports caching.

When the --use-cache (-c) flag is provided, NoxDir will attempt to use an existing cache file for the selected drive or volume. If no cache file exists, it performs a full scan and saves the result to a cache file for future use.

If a cache file is found, the full scan is skipped by default (unless you explicitly want to see the structure delta). Scanning is then performed on demand using the r (refresh) key, which updates the cache after the session ends.

Cache file locations:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\.noxdir\cache (e.g., C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\.noxdir\cache)
• Linux/macOS: `~/.noxd