Treemacs is currently in an active - but low intensity - state of development. New features are worked on, PRs will be looked at and issues answered - eventually. My time budget is limited, so looking for new work just means looking at whatever is currently at the top of my inbox. If you feel like the ticket you’ve opened has gone unanswered for a while feel free to give it a bump - you are explicitly encouraged to do so.
Treemacs is a file and project explorer similar to NeoTree or vim’s NerdTree, but largely inspired by the Project Explorer in Eclipse. It shows the file system outlines of your projects in a simple tree layout allowing quick navigation and exploration, while also possessing basic file management utilities. Specifically a quick feature overview looks as follows:
ace-window to choose a window or launching an external application.
treemacs-follow-mode or treemacs-tag-follow-mode.
treemacs-projectile package lets you quickly add your projectile projects to the treemacs workspace. project.el compatibility is built-in.
treemacs-evil to integrate treemacs with evil and enable j/k navigation. More on both below. You can also summon helpful hydras with ? and C-? that will remind you of treemacs’ many keybindings and features.
bookmark-set on a Treemacs item will store a bookmark to Treemacs buffer for that item.
(The font used in the gifs is Fantasque Sans Mono)
Workspace administration with org-mode:
Automatic reaction to changes in the file system:
Automatic reaction to changes in git:
Full-featured mouse interface:
Including moving and opening files via mouse drag:
If you don’t care about reading the full readme here’s a list of some bare bones basics to get you started:
? to summon the helpful hydra: 
treemacs-eviltreemacs-projectile to allow quickly add your projectile projects to treemacs.treemacs.treemacs-TAB/RET-actions-config.C-c C-p prefix.If you’ve previously used a different explorer like NeoTree or NerdTree - or an earlier version of treemacs for that matter - you are probably used to a display system wherein you see exactly a single file tree whose exact root you can arbitrarily change. This system makes it difficult to work on and switch between multiple projects. Treemacs used to (and still does) remedy that limitation by making every treemacs buffer unique to its frame, but it has now been redesigned to be able to display multiple file trees - projects - at once.
In treemacs a workspace is simply a (named) collection of projects, while a project mostly consists of 2 things: its location in the file system and its name. This is the info that you need to provide when you want to add a new project to your workspace. Just like projects you can add, remove, rename and switch between workspaces at any time.
This design approach has various advantages and disadvantages. It is now no longer possible to “free roam” in the file system with treemacs, i.e. you can no longer arbitrarily switch the single file tree’s root to the directory at point or the current root’s parent. Another restriction is that the same part of the file system may not appear more than once as part of the workspace. For example, it is not possible to have both /Documents and /Documents/ProjectX as projects in the same workspace, since internally treemacs heavily relies on every node having a unique natural key in its absolute path. Nonetheless the pros certainly outweigh the cons, as a multiroot setup allows to work on multiple projects with any combination concern/buffer separating frameworks, be it persp/perspective, eyebrowse, tab-bar-mode, or project.el/projectile. It also opens the potential for concurrent display not only of the file system, but e.g. the currently open buffers.
When a workspace is first needed, treemacs will select a workspace in the following manner:
If the current buffer is editing a file then treemacs will try to find the first workspace with a project containing that file. If that fails treemacs will resort to using the fallback workspace which is defined as simply the first element in the list of all workspace.
The order of workspaces is the same that you see when calling treemacs-edit-workspaces (see next chapter). You can interactively set the fallback workspace by calling treemacs-set-fallback-workspace.
This selection will happen when treemacs is first started (with a command like treemacs-select-window) or when a function that requires the current workspace to be known is used (like adding or removing a project).
It is possible to disable a workspace or project so it won’t appear in treemacs, but still remains a part of your loadout, keeping it visible when you go edit your workspaces. To do so simply start the name of the workspace or project with “COMMENT”:
Conveniently Editing Your Projects and WorkspacesThere are two ways to edit your projects and workspaces: call up single add/remove/rename/switch commands under either the C-c C-p or C-c C-w prefix, or call treemacs-edit-workspaces and edit your entire layout in the form of a single org-mode buffer.
The used org-format is quite simple: level 1 headlines are names of workspaces, level 2 headlines are names of projects in a workspace, and every project’s path is given as a description list, starting with a - (and an optional leading space). Empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored, and everything else leads to an error.
You needn’t worry about making mistakes either. If there’s something wrong when you call treemacs-finish-edit (C-c C-c) then treemacs will point you at the incorrect line and tell you what’s missing:
(Note that the list with the path property allows an indentation of 0 or 1 spaces only. The much greater visible indentation is caused by org-indent-mode)
If a strict workspace and project structure, as described above, is too stringent for your use-case there are multiple other ways to use treemacs in a more “free-form” style:
treemacs-display-current-project-exclusively to display only the current project (removing all other projects from the workspace).treemacs-project-follow-mode to make treemacs automatically switch to the project for the current buffer.M-H and M-L (or treemacs-root-up and treemacs-root-down) to arbitrarily change the project’s root and freely navigate through your your file system, similar to dired. M-H will navigate one level upward in the file system, M-L will move into the directory at point.Treemacs buffers have a limited scope they are visible in: the frames they are created in. A treemacs buffer, once created, lives alongside and inside its frame, and is also destroyed with that frame. Calling treemacs while inside a new frame will create a new buffer for it, regardless how many other treemacs buffers already exist. While there can be multiple unique treemacs buffer they will all still show the same workspace and the same projects.
A treemacs buffer that does not belong to a frame may still be made visible by manually selecting in the buffer list. This would break various assumptions in treemacs’ code base and effectively falls under undefined behaviour - a bad idea all around.
Treemacs handles left clicks in much the same way as modern graphical applications do: a single click sets the focus, a double click expands or collapses a directory or tag section node and visits a file/moves to a tag for a file/tag node.
Additionally tag sections can be expanded or collapsed by a single click on the file/tag section icon.
If you prefer to expand/collapse nodes with a single mouse click you can also use treemacs-single-click-expand-action:
(with-eval-after-load 'treemacs (define-key treemacs-mode-map [mouse-1] #'treemacs-single-click-expand-action))
A right click popup-menu is also available:
You can move and open files by dragging them with the mouse.
treemacs-follow-mode is a global minor mode which allows the treemacs view to always move its focus to the currently selected file. This mode runs on an idle timer - the exact duration of inactivity (in seconds) before a move is called is determined by treemacs-tag-follow-delay.
treemacs-tag-follow-mode is a global minor mode which extends and effectively replaces treemacs-follow-mode. When activated it follows not just the current file, but also the current tag. This works alongside treemacs’ integration with imenu, so all file types providing an imenu implementation are compatible.
This mode, like follow-mode, runs on an idle timer - the exact duration of inactivity (in seconds) before a move is called is determined by treemacs-tag-follow-delay.
Note that in order to move to a tag in treemacs the treemacs buffer’s window needs to be temporarily selected, which will reset blink-cursor-mode’s timer if it is enabled. This will result in the cursor blinking seemingly pausing for a short time and giving the appearance of the tag follow action lasting much longer than it really does.
treemacs-fringe-indicator-mode is a global minor mode that displays a little icon in the fringe that moves with the cursor. It can make the selected line more visible if hl-line-mode doesn’t stand out with your theme.
The indicator can either be permanently visible, or be only shown when the treemacs window is selected by calling it either with the always or only-when-focused argument.
treemacs-git-mode is a global minor mode which enables treemacs to check for files’ and directories’ git status information and highlight them accordingly (see also the treemacs-git-... faces). The mode is available in 3 variants: simple, extended and deferred:
treemacs-deferred-git-apply-delay seconds of idle time. This may be faster (if not in truth then at least in appereance) as the git process is given a much greater amount of time to finish. The downside is that the effect of nodes changing their colors may be somewhat jarring, though this effect is largely mitigated due to the use of a caching layer.When called interactively treemacs-git-mode will ask for the variant to use. In lisp code an appropriate symbol can be directly passed to the minor mode function:
(treemacs-git-mode 'deferred)
All versions use an asynchronous git process and are optimized to not do more work than necessary, so their performance cost should, for the most part, be the constant amount of time it takes to fork a subprocess. For repositories where this is not the case treemacs-max-git-entries (default value 5000) will limit the number of git status entries treemacs will process before ignoring the rest.
treemacs-filewatch-mode is a global minor mode which enables treemacs to watch the files it is displaying for changes and automatically refresh itself when it detects a change in the file system that it decides is relevant.
A change event is relevant for treemacs if a new file has been created or deleted or a file has been changed and treemacs-git-mode is enabled. Events caused by files that are ignored as per treemacs-ignored-file-predicates are likewise counted as not relevant.
The refresh is not called immediately after an event was received, treemacs instead waits treemacs-file-event-delay ms to see if any more files have changed to avoid having to refresh multiple times over a short period of time. Treemacs will not refresh the entire view to make the detected changes visible, but will instead only make updates to the directories where the change(s) happened. Using this mode is therefore by far not as expensive as a full refresh on every change and save.
The mode only applies to directories opened after this mode has been activated. This means that to enable file watching in an already existing treemacs buffer it needs to be killed and rebuilt. Turning off this mode is, on the other hand, instantaneous - it will immediately turn off all existing file watch processes and outstanding refresh actions.
Known limitations:
treemacs-git-mode you still need to do a manual refresh to see your files’ faces go from ‘changed’ and ‘untracked’ to ‘unchanged’ after a commit. The treemacs-magit package provides the necessary hooks to fill this gap.Treemacs is no dired, but it supports the basic file management facilities of creating, deleting, moving, copying and renaming files.
It is also possible to mark multiple files to act on them. M-m will summon a hydra for bulk file actions. NOTE: The bulk action implementation is using treemacs’ (yet to be documented) annotation api, which is set up to provide permanent annotations like colouring based on flycheck’s error/warning/info output. This means that marking files will likewise be permanent, even if you collapse the directories containing those files and they are no longer visible.
treemacs-indent-guide-mode is a simple visual helper based on the options provided by the treemacs-indentation and treemacs-indentation-string settings. Its appearance is dictated by treemacs-indent-guide-style, the options are either line:
or block:
treemacs-git-commit-diff-mode will annotate git-tracked project to show how many commits the local repo is ahead or behind its remote counterpart:
Treemacs’ sessions - your workspace and the projects it contains - are saved when Emacs shuts down and restored when treemacs is first loaded. This persistence process is fully automatic and independent, and should therefore be fully compatible with desktop-save-mode.
The persisted state is saved under user-emacs-directory/.cache/treemacs-persist by default. The exact file location is saved in the variable treemacs-persist-file.
If something goes wrong when loading the file the erroneous state will be saved in treemacs-last-error-persist-file for debugging.
When run in a terminal treemacs will fall back to a much simpler rendering system, foregoing its usual png icons and using simple + and - characters instead. The exact characters used are highly customizable.
Treemacs is able to display not only the file system, but also tags found in individual files. The tags list is sourced using emacs’ builtin imenu functionality, so all file types that emacs can generate an imenu index for are supported.
Imenu caches its result, so to avoid stale tag lists setting imenu-auto-rescan to t is recommended. Tags generated with the help of semantic-mode are likewise supported.
Treemacs can show the tags produced by ggtags if you switch a buffer’s imenu index function to use ggtags:
(setq-local imenu-create-index-function #'ggtags-build-imenu-index)Current-Directory Awareness
Treemacs always sets the default-directory variable based on the (nearest) path at the current node, falling back to your home directory when there is no node or path at point. That means that various commands like find-file, ediff magit-status or helm-projectile-ag will correctly act based on the current directory or project context.
Treemacs supports projects on remote directories, e.g. /scp:remote-server:path/to/directory.
However tramp support has some restrictions: treemacs-use-collapsed-directories has no effect on remote directories.
Treemacs supports storing links to its file nodes by means of org-store-link.
Using a different treemacs theme works the same way as using a different Emacs theme: just call treemacs-load-theme, either programmatically or interactively. In the former case you need to supply the name of the theme as a string, like this:
(treemacs-load-theme "Default")
Do keep in mind that by default treemacs’ theme support is all theory: the standard installation includes only the default theme; this feature is meant to easily allow others to extend, create and distribute themes for treemacs.
A detailed explanation on modifying themes and icons can be found in the Configuration section.
If you want to look at files from within treemacs, without opening them with RET and switching to another window, you can do so with P which activates treemacs-peek-mode. When peek-mode is active treemacs will automatically preview the file at point.
To quit peek-mode either press P again to disable it or open a file with RET. Either way upon exiting peek-mode all files that have been opened due to peeking will be closed again (with the exception of the one that you opened with RET, of course).
You can scroll the window being peeked (and in general other-window when you are in treemacs) with M-N/P or M-J/K if you use treemacs-evil.
Next to treemacs itself you can optionally install:
Must be installed and loaded if you use evil. The keybindings and the cursor will not be setup properly otherwise. It’ll also enable navigation with j/k instead of n/p.
Allows to quickly add your projectile projects to the treemacs workspace.
A small utility package to fill the small gaps left by using filewatch-mode and git-mode in conjunction with magit: it will inform treemacs about (un)staging of files and commits happening in magit.
Allows you to use treemacs icons in dired buffers with treemacs-icons-dired-mode:
Integration with persp-mode or perspective.el that allows treemacs buffers to be unique inside the active perspective instead of the default frame-based buffer scope.
Integration with tab-bar-mode that allows treemacs buffers to be unique inside the active tab instead of the default frame-based buffer scope.
Provides a theme using all-the-icons.
Treemacs can be extended to display arbitrary nodes as well as be used as a general rendering backend for any tree-like structures. See here for an extended tutorial and demonstration.
Treemacs is included in Spacemacs (for now only on the dev branch). If you are using the development version of Spacemacs you can simply add treemacs to dotspacemacs-configuration-layers to replace the default NeoTree. Check SPC h SPC treemacs for details. Otherwise you will need to add treemacs to dotspacemacs-additional-packages.
Treemacs is also available on MELPA. If you just want to quickly start using it grab the use-package example below, and customize it as needed (remove treemacs-evil if you don’t use it, customize the keybindings to you taste, etc).
Either way keep in mind that treemacs has no default keybindings for its globally callable initialization functions. Each user is supposed to select keybindings for functions like treemacs-find-file based on whatever they find convenient.
You can find an exhaustive overview of all functions, their keybindings and functions you need to bind yourself below.
The following use-package snippet includes a list of all of treemacs’ configuration options in their default setting. Setting them, or activating the minor modes yourself is not necessary, they are only listed here to encourage discoverability.
(use-package treemacs
:ensure t
:defer t
:init
(with-eval-after-load 'winum
(define-key winum-keymap (kbd "M-0") #'treemacs-select-window))
:config
(progn
(setq treemacs-buffer-name-function #'treemacs-default-buffer-name
treemacs-buffer-name-prefix " *Treemacs-Buffer-"
treemacs-collapse-dirs (if treemacs-python-executable 3 0)
treemacs-deferred-git-apply-delay 0.5
treemacs-directory-name-transformer #'identity
treemacs-display-in-side-window t
treemacs-eldoc-display 'simple
treemacs-file-event-delay 2000
treemacs-file-extension-regex treemacs-last-period-regex-value
treemacs-file-follow-delay 0.2
treemacs-file-name-transformer #'identity
treemacs-follow-after-init t
treemacs-expand-after-init t
treemacs-find-workspace-method 'find-for-file-or-pick-first
treemacs-git-command-pipe ""
treemacs-goto-tag-strategy 'refetch-index
treemacs-header-scroll-indicators '(nil . "^^^^^^")
treemacs-hide-dot-git-directory t
treemacs-indentation 2
treemacs-indentation-string " "
treemacs-is-never-other-window nil
treemacs-max-git-entries 5000
treemacs-missing-project-action 'ask
treemacs-move-files-by-mouse-dragging t
treemacs-move-forward-on-expand nil
treemacs-no-png-images nil
treemacs-no-delete-other-windows t
treemacs-project-follow-cleanup nil
treemacs-persist-file (expand-file-name ".cache/treemacs-persist" user-emacs-directory)
treemacs-position 'left
treemacs-read-string-input 'from-child-frame
treemacs-recenter-distance 0.1
treemacs-recenter-after-file-follow nil
treemacs-recenter-after-tag-follow nil
treemacs-recenter-after-project-jump 'always
treemacs-recenter-after-project-expand 'on-distance
treemacs-litter-directories '("/node_modules" "/.venv" "/.cask")
treemacs-project-follow-into-home nil
treemacs-show-cursor nil
treemacs-show-hidden-files t
treemacs-silent-filewatch nil
treemacs-silent-refresh nil
treemacs-sorting 'alphabetic-asc
treemacs-select-when-already-in-treemacs 'move-back
treemacs-space-between-root-nodes t
treemacs-tag-follow-cleanup t
treemacs-tag-follow-delay 1.5
treemacs-text-scale nil
treemacs-user-mode-line-format nil
treemacs-user-header-line-format nil
treemacs-wide-toggle-width 70
treemacs-width 35
treemacs-width-increment 1
treemacs-width-is-initially-locked t
treemacs-workspace-switch-cleanup nil)
;; The default width and height of the icons is 22 pixels. If you are
;; using a Hi-DPI display, uncomment this to double the icon size.
;;(treemacs-resize-icons 44)
(treemacs-follow-mode t)
(treemacs-filewatch-mode t)
(treemacs-fringe-indicator-mode 'always)
(when treemacs-python-executable
(treemacs-git-commit-diff-mode t))
(pcase (cons (not (null (executable-find "git")))
(not (null treemacs-python-executable)))
(`(t . t)
(treemacs-git-mode 'deferred))
(`(t . _)
(treemacs-git-mode 'simple)))
(treemacs-hide-gitignored-files-mode nil))
:bind
(:map global-map
("M-0" . treemacs-select-window)
("C-x t 1" . treemacs-delete-other-windows)
("C-x t t" . treemacs)
("C-x t d" . treemacs-select-directory)
("C-x t B" . treemacs-bookmark)
("C-x t C-t" . treemacs-find-file)
("C-x t M-t" . treemacs-find-tag)))
(use-package treemacs-evil
:after (treemacs evil)
:ensure t)
(use-package treemacs-projectile
:after (treemacs projectile)
:ensure t)
(use-package treemacs-icons-dired
:hook (dired-mode . treemacs-icons-dired-enable-once)
:ensure t)
(use-package treemacs-magit
:after (treemacs magit)
:ensure t)
(use-package treemacs-persp ;;treemacs-perspective if you use perspective.el vs. persp-mode
:after (treemacs persp-mode) ;;or perspective vs. persp-mode
:ensure t
:config (treemacs-set-scope-type 'Perspectives))
(use-package treemacs-tab-bar ;;treemacs-tab-bar if you use tab-bar-mode
:after (treemacs)
:ensure t
:config (treemacs-set-scope-type 'Tabs))
(treemacs-start-on-boot)
Treemacs offers the following configuration options (describe-variable will usually offers more details):
treemacs-indentation is not specified as pixels. treemacs-width 35 Width of the treemacs window. treemacs-wide-toggle-width 70 Width of the treemacs window when using treemacs-extra-wide-toggle. treemacs-width-increment 1 When resizing, this value is added or substracted from the window width. treemacs-show-hidden-files t Dotfiles will be shown if this is set to t and be hidden otherwise. treemacs-follow-after-init t When non-nil follow the currently selected file after initializing the treemacs buffer, regardless of treemacs-follow-mode setting. treemacs-expand-after-init t When non-nil expand the first project after treemacs is first initialsed. treemacs-sorting alphabetic-asc Indicates how treemacs will sort its files and directories. (Files will always be shown after directories.) treemacs-ignored-file-predicates (treemacs–std-ignore-file-predicate) List of predicates to test for files and directories ignored by Emacs. Ignored files will never be shown in the treemacs buffer. treemacs-pre-file-insert-predicates nil List of predicates to test for files and directories not to be rendered. Unlike treemacs-ignored-file-predicates these predicates apply when files’ git status information is available. treemacs-file-event-delay 2000 How long (in milliseconds) to collect file events before refreshing. See also treemacs-filewatch-mode. treemacs-goto-tag-strategy refetch-index Indicates how to move to a tag when its buffer is dead. treemacs-default-visit-action treemacs-visit-node-no-split Default action for opening a node (e.g. file, directory, tag). treemacs-visit-file-default action in treemacs-*-actions-config calls this function. treemacs-RET-actions-config Prefers visiting nodes over closing/opening Alist defining the behaviour of treemacs-RET-action. treemacs-TAB-actions-config Prefers closing/opening nodes over visiting Alist defining the behaviour of treemacs-TAB-action. treemacs-doubleclick-actions-config Closes/opens tags and visits files Alist defining the behaviour of treemacs-doubleclick-action. treemacs-collapse-dirs 0 Collapse this many directories into one, when possible. A directory is collapsible when its content consists of nothing but another directory. treemacs-silent-refresh nil When non-nil a completed refresh will not be announced with a log message. This applies both to manual refreshing as well as automatic (due to treemacs-filewatch-mode). treemacs-silent-filewatch nil When non-nil a refresh due to filewatch-mode will cause no log message. treemacs-is-never-other-window nil Prevents treemacs from being selected with other-window. treemacs-position left Position of treemacs buffer. Valid values are left, right. treemacs-tag-follow-delay 1.5 Delay in seconds of inactivity for treemacs-tag-follow-mode to trigger. treemacs-tag-follow-cleanup t When non-nil treemacs-tag-follow-mode will keep only the current file’s tags visible. treemacs-project-follow-cleanup nil When non-nil treemacs-follow-mode will keep only the current project expanded and all others closed. treemacs-no-png-images nil When non-nil treemacs will use TUI string icons even when running in a GUI. treemacs-python-executable (treemacs–find-python3) Python 3 binary used by treemacs. treemacs-git-executable “git” The git binary used by treemacs. treemacs-recenter-after-file-follow nil Decides if and when to call recenter when treemacs-follow-mode moves to a new file. treemacs-recenter-after-tag-follow nil Decides if and when to call recenter when treemacs-tag-follow-mode moves to a new tag. treemacs-recenter-after-project-jump ‘always Decides if and when to call recenter when navigating between projects. treemacs-recenter-after-project-expand ‘on-distance Decides if and when to call recenter when expanding a project node. treemacs-recenter-distance 0.1 Minimum distance from window top/bottom (0.1 = 10%) before treemacs calls recenter in tag/file-follow-mode. treemacs-pulse-on-success t When non-nil treemacs will pulse the current line as a success indicator, e.g. when creating a file. treemacs-pulse-on-failure t When non-nil treemacs will pulse the current line as a failure indicator, e.g. when failing to find a file’s tags. treemacs-elisp-imenu-expression [too large to list] The imenu expression treemacs uses in elisp buffers. treemacs-persist-file ~/.emacs.d/.cache/treemacs-persist Path to the file treemacs uses to persist its state. treemacs-last-error-persist-file ~/.emacs.d/.cache/treemacs-persist-at-last-error Path to the file treemacs uses to persist its state. treemacs-space-between-root-nodes t When non-nil treemacs will separate root nodes with an empty line. treemacs-wrap-around t When non-nil treemacs will wrap around at the buffer edges when moving between lines. treemacs–fringe-indicator-bitmap [vertical bar] The fringe bitmap used by the fringe-indicator minor mode. treemacs-deferred-git-apply-delay 0.5 Seconds of idle time for git highlighting to apply when using the deferred treemacs-git-mode. treemacs-file-follow-delay 0.2 Delay in seconds of idle time for treemacs to follow the selected window. treemacs-display-in-side-window t When non-nil treemacs will use a dedicated side-window. treemacs-max-git-entries 5000 Maximum number of git status entries treemacs will process. Anything above that number will be ignored. treemacs-missing-project-action ask When a persisted project is missing from filesystem, ask will prompt for action, keep will keep the project in the project list, and remove will remove it from it without prompt. treemacs-show-cursor nil When non-nil the cursor will stay visible in the treemacs buffer. treemacs-git-command-pipe ”” Text to be appended to treemacs’ git command. Useful for filtering with something like grep. treemacs-no-delete-other-windows t Prevents the treemacs window from being deleted by commands like delete-other-windows and magit-status. treemacs-eldoc-display ‘simple Enables eldoc display of the file path at point. Requires eldoc-mode. treemacs-bookmark-title-template “Treemacs - ${project}: ${label}” When using bookmark-set in Treemacs, the default template for a bookmark label. The following patterns are available: “${project}”, “${label}”, “${label:N}”, ${label-path}”, “${label-path:N}”, “${file-path}”, “${file-path:N}”. treemacs-file-extension-regex Text after last period Determines how treemacs detects a file extension. Can be set to use text after first or last period. treemacs-directory-name-transformer identity Transformer function that is applied to directory names before rendering for any sort of cosmetic effect. treemacs-file-name-transformer identity Transformer function that is applied to file names before rendering for any sort of cosmetic effect. treemacs-user-mode-line-format nil When non-nil treemacs will use it as a mode line format (otherwise format provided by spaceline, moody-mode-line and doom-modeline will be used or, finally, “Treemacs” text will be displayed) treemacs-user-header-line-format nil When non-nil treemacs will use it as a header line format treemacs-move-forward-on-expand nil When non-nil treemacs will move to the first child of an expanded node. treemacs-workspace-switch-cleanup nil Indicates which, if any, buffers should be deleted on a workspace switch. Valid values are nil, files, all. treemacs-read-string-input ‘from-child-frame Indicates whether simple string input like project names should be read from a child frame or the minibuffer. treemacs-expand-added-projects t Indicates whether newly added projects should be expanded. treemacs-imenu-scope ‘everything Determines which items treemacs’ imenu function will collect. treemacs-litter-directories (”node_modules” ”.venv” “/.cask”) List of directories affected by treemacs-cleanup-litter. treemacs-width-is-initially-locked t Indicates whether the treemacs windows starts with a locked width or not. treemacs-select-when-already-in-treemacs ‘move-back Indicates how treemacs-select-window behaves when treemacs is already selected. treemacs-text-scale nil Scaling for text in treemacs, used via text-scale-increase. treemacs-indent-guide-style line Appearance option for treemacs-indent-guide, either a thin line or a thick block. treemacs-find-workspace-method ‘find-for-file-or-pick-first Determines how treemacs selects the workspace when it first starts. treemacs-header-scroll-indicators ‘(nil . “^^^^^^”) Indicators used for treemacs-indicate-top-scroll-mode. treemacs-hide-dot-git-directory t Indicates whether .git directories should always be hidden. treemacs-project-follow-into-home nil Indicates whether treemacs-project-follow-mode can follow into the $HOME directory. treemacs-move-files-by-mouse-dragging t When non-nil treemacs will move files by dragging with your mouse inside treemacs. treemacs-buffer-name-function #’treemacs-default-buffer-name Determines the names of treemacs buffers. treemacs-file-follow-ignore-functions nil Functions to determine which files shold not be followed. treemacs-buffer-name-prefix ” *Treemacs-Buffer-” Static prefix for all treemacs buffer names.
Treemacs defines and uses the following faces:
Face Based on Description treemacs-directory-face font-lock-function-name-face Face used for directories. treemacs-directory-collapsed-face treemacs-directory-face Face used for collapsed part of directories. treemacs-file-face default Face used for files. treemacs-root-face font-lock-constant-face Face used for project roots. treemacs-root-unreadable-face treemacs-root-face Face used for local unreadable project roots. treemacs-root-remote-face font-lock-function-name-face, treemacs-root-face Face used for readable remote (Tramp) project roots. treemacs-root-remote-unreadable-face treemacs-root-unreadable-face Face used for unreadable remote (Tramp) project roots. treemacs-root-remote-disconnected-face warning, treemacs-root-face Face used for disconnected remote (Tramp) project roots. treemacs-tags-face font-lock-builtin-face Face used for tags. treemacs-help-title-face font-lock-constant-face Face used for the title of the helpful hydra. treemacs-help-column-face font-lock-keyword-face Face used for the column headers of the helpful hydra. treemacs-git-*-face various font lock faces Faces used by treemacs for various git states. treemacs-term-node-face font-lock-string-face Face for directory node symbols used by treemacs when it runs in a terminal. treemacs-on-success-pulse-face :fg #111111 :bg #669966 Pulse face used when pulsing on a successful action. treemacs-on-failure-puse-face :fg #111111 :bg #ab3737 Pulse face used when pulsing on a failed action. treemacs-marked-file-face :fg #f0c674 :bg #ab3737 Face for files marked for bulk file management. treemacs-fringe-indicator-face cursor Face for the fringe indicator. treemacs-header-button-face font-lock-keyword-face Face for header buttons. treemacs-git-commit-diff-face font-lock-comment-face Face used fortreemacs-indicate-top-scroll-mode annotations. treemacs-window-background-face default Face used for the background of the treemacs window. treemacs-hl-line-face hl-line Face used for hl-line overlay inside the treemacs buffer.
To make treemacs get along with evil-mode you need to install and load treemacs-evil. It does not define any functions or offer any configuration options, making sure it is loaded is sufficient.
Creating and modifying themes and icons is all done in a single step using dedicated macros.
To create a theme use treemacs-create-theme. It requires the name of the theme and accepts 3 optional keyword arguments: the directory the theme’s icons are stored in (if it’s using png icons), the name of the theme it’s extending and the config, a final form that’s responsible for creating all the theme’s icons. A config will typically consist of nothing but calls to treemacs-create-icon:
(treemacs-create-theme "Default"
:icon-directory (treemacs-join-path treemacs-dir "icons/default")
:config
(progn
(treemacs-create-icon :file "root-open.png" :fallback "" :extensions (root-open))
(treemacs-create-icon :file "root-closed.png" :fallback "" :extensions (root-closed))
(treemacs-create-icon :file "emacs.png" :fallback "🗏 " :extensions ("el" "elc"))
(treemacs-create-icon :file "readme.png" :fallback "🗏 " :extensions ("readme.md"))
(treemacs-create-icon :file "src-closed.png" :fallback "📁 " :extensions ("src-closed"))
(treemacs-create-icon :file "src-open.png" :fallback "📂 " :extensions ("src-open"))
(treemacs-create-icon :icon (all-the-icons-icon-for-file "yaml") :extensions ("yml" "yaml"))))
The :file argument is relative to the icon directory of the theme being created. When not using image icons the :icon-directory argument can be omitted and the :file argument can be switched for :icon to supply the icon string directly. The TUI fallback is also optional, ” ” is used by default. Finally the list of extensions determines which file extensions the icon should be used for.
For treemacs an extension is either the entire file name or the text after the last period (unless treemacs-file-extension-regex is customized). This means it can match normal file names like “init.el”, extensionless file names like “Makefile”. Because the full name is checked first it is possible to give special files their own icon, for example “Readme.md” can use a different icon than normal markdown files.
Directories can likewise have their own icons. In that case you just need to give the directory’s name and the suffix “-open” or “-closed”, like the “src” directory in the example above.
Instead of a string extension a symbol can also be used. In this case treemacs will also create a variable for that icon named treemacs-icon-$symbol. Treemacs uses several such icon variables and any new theme should define their own versions (it’s not extending the default theme). The following icons are used:
Analogous to creating a new theme treemacs-modify-theme can be used to change, or add to, an existing theme:
(treemacs-modify-theme "Default"
:icon-directory "/other/icons/dir"
:config
(progn
(treemacs-create-icon :icon "+" :extensions (dir-closed))
(treemacs-create-icon :icon "-" :extensions (dir-open))))
Finally keep in mind that treemacs’ icons are all buffer-local values, and will most likely not be defined when trying to access their values directly. When you need to programmatically access some of treemacs’ icons you should use treemacs-get-icon-value:
(treemacs-get-icon-value 'root-closed nil "Default") (treemacs-get-icon-value "org" t)
Treemacs also offers a quick and straighforward way to add a (gui) icon to the currently active theme, without caring for its name or declaring icon directories:
(defvar treemacs-custom-html-icon (all-the-icons-icon-for-file "name.html")) (treemacs-define-custom-icon treemacs-custom-html-icon "html" "htm")
Important: There is a restriction that all icons must must be exactly 2 characters long. That’s including the space that will separate an icon from the filename.
If you want to create an icon based on an image you can use treemacs-define-custom-image-icon instead:
(treemacs-define-custom-image-icon "/path/to/icon.png" "htm" "html")
For icons of directories two icon variants are needed: one for an open and one for a closed directory state. These can be indicated with a simple "-open" and "-closed" suffix. For example the following lines will add special icons for directories named “scripts”:
(treemacs-define-custom-icon "X " "scripts-closed") (treemacs-define-custom-icon "Y " "scripts-open")Icons according to
auto-mode-alist
For some file extensions, like “.cc” or “.hh”, it is not immediately obvious which major mode will open these files, and thus which icon they should be assigned. Treemacs offers the option that automate this decision based on auto-mode-alist. You can use the function treemacs-map-icons-with-auto-mode-alist to change the assigned icons for a list of file extensions based on the major mode the icons are mapped to in auto-mode-alist.
treemacs-map-icons-with-auto-mode-alist takes 2 arguments: first a list of file extensions, then an alist that decides which icon should be used for which mapped major mode. For example, the code to decide the icons for “.hh” and “.cc” files with auto-mode-alist would look like this:
(treemacs-map-icons-with-auto-mode-alist
'(".cc" ".hh")
`((c-mode . ,(treemacs-get-icon-value "c"))
(c++-mode . ,(treemacs-get-icon-value "cpp"))))
It is possible to force treemacs to use the simple TUI icons in GUI mode by setting treemacs-no-png-images to t.
If your emacs has been compiled with Imagemagick support, or you’re using Emacs >= 27.1, you can arbitrarily change the size of treemacs’ icons by (interactively or programmatically) calling treemacs-resize-icons.
Depending on your font you may experience the problem of treemacs’ icons seemingly jumping around left and right when they are expanded and collapsed when using the all-the-icons theme. The straighforward solution is to use a different font. You may also try a workaround of using a different font that applies only to the TAB characters used to align treemacs’ all-the-icons-based icons. To do that do not load treemacs-all-the-icons with require. Instead use the following alternative provided by treemacs itself:
(treemacs-load-all-the-icons-with-workaround-font "Hermit")
The Hermit font used here is just an example - you will need to pick a font that is available on your system and does not suffer from the tab width issue.
This line will load treemacs-all-the-icons (it must not have been loaded previously) and enable the all-the-icons theme. The given font argument will be used as the font for the alignment tabs used for the icons, hopefully alleviating the indentation problem. In addition treemacs-indentation and treemacs-indentation-string will be set to 1 and a (font-changed) TAB character respectively, so customizing them is (probably) not possible.
These functions are not bound to any keys by default. It’s left up to users to find the most convenient key binds.
Action Description treemacs Show/Hide/Initialize treemacs. treemacs-bookmark Find a bookmark in treemacs. treemacs-find-file Find and focus the current file in treemacs. treemacs-find-tag Find and focus the current tag in treemacs. treemacs-select-window Select the treemacs window if it is visible. Calltreemacs if it is not. treemacs-select-directory Select a single directory treemacs-delete-other-windows Same as delete-other-windows, but will not delete the treemacs window. treemacs-show-changelog Opens a buffer showing the changelog. treemacs-load-theme Load a different icon theme. treemacs-icon-catalogue Showcases all themes and their icons. treemacs-narrow-to-current-file Close everything except the view on the current file. treemacs-create-workspace-from-project Create a new workspace containing only the current project. treemacs-projectile Add a project from projectile to treemacs. treemacs-add-and-display-current-project Add current project to treemacs and open it. treemacs-add-and-display-current-project-exclusively Add current project to treemacs and open it, deleting all others. treemacs-select-scope-type Select the scope of treemacs buffers in which they are unique
Treemacs’ keybindings are distributed to several keymaps, based on common keybindings:
Project Keybinds (PrefixC-c C-p) Key Action Description C-c C-p a treemacs-add-project-to-workspace Select a new project to add to the treemacs workspace. C-c C-p p treemacs-projectile Select a projectile project to add to the workspace. C-c C-p d treemacs-remove-project-from-workspace Remove project at point from the workspace. C-c C-p r treemacs-rename-project Rename project at point. C-c C-p c c treemacs-collapse-project Collapse project at point. C-c C-p c o/S-TAB treemacs-collapse-all-projects Collapse all projects. C-c C-p c o treemacs-collapse-all-projects Collapse all projects except the project at point. Workspaces Keybinds (Prefix C-c C-w) Key Action Description C-c C-w r treemacs-rename-workspace Rename a workspace. C-c C-w a treemacs-create-workspace Create a new workspace. C-c C-w d treemacs-remove-workspace Delete a workspace. C-c C-w s treemacs-switch-workspace Switch the current workspace. C-c C-w e treemacs-edit-workspaces Edit workspace layout via org-mode. C-c C-w n treemacs-next-workspace Switch to the next workspace. C-c C-w f treemacs-set-fallback-workspace Select the default fallback workspace. Node Visit Keybinds (Prefix o) Key Action Description ov treemacs-visit-node-vertical-split Open current file or tag by vertically splitting next-window. oh treemacs-visit-node-horizontal-split Open current file or tag by horizontally splitting next-window. oo/RET treemacs-visit-node-no-split Open current file or tag, performing no split and using next-window directly. oc treemacs-visit-node-close-treemacs Open current file or tag, performing no split and using next-window directly, and close treemacs. oaa treemacs-visit-node-ace Open current file or tag, using ace-window to decide which window to open the file in. oah treemacs-visit-node-ace-horizontal-split Open current file or tag by horizontally splitting a window selected by ace-window. oav treemacs-visit-node-ace-vertical-split Open current file or tag by vertically splitting a window selected by ace-window. or treemacs-visit-node-in-most-recently-used-window Open current file or tag in the most recently used window. ox treemacs-visit-node-in-external-application Open current file according to its mime type in an external application. Linux, Windows and Mac are supported. Toggle Keybinds (Prefix t) Key Action Description th treemacs-toggle-show-dotfiles Toggle the hiding and displaying of dotfiles. ti treemacs-hide-gitignored-files-mode Toggle the hiding and displaying of gitignored files. tw treemacs-toggle-fixed-width Toggle whether the treemacs window should have a fixed width. See also treemacs-width. tf treemacs-follow-mode Toggle treemacs-follow-mode. ta treemacs-filewatch-mode Toggle treemacs-filewatch-mode. tv treemacs-fringe-indicator-mode Toggle treemacs-fringe-indicator-mode. td treemacs-git-commit-diff-mode Toggle treemacs-git-commit-diff-mode. Key Action Description ya treemacs-copy-absolute-path-at-point Copy the absolute path of the node at point. yr treemacs-copy-relative-path-at-point Copy the path of the node at point relative to the project root. yp treemacs-copy-project-path-at-point Copy the absolute path of the project root for the node at point. yn treemacs-copy-filename-at-point Copy the filename for the node at point. yf treemacs-copy-file Copy the file at point. Key Action Description ? treemacs-common-helpful-hydra Summon a helpful hydra to show you treemacs’ most commonly used keybinds. C-? treemacs-advanced-helpful-hydra Summon a helpful hydra to show you treemacs’ rarely used, advanced keybinds. j/n treemacs-next-line Go to the next line. k/p treemacs-previous-line Go to the previous line. M-J/N treemacs-next-line-other-window Go to the next line in next-window. M-K/P treemacs-previous-line-other-window Go to the previous line in next-window.. <PgUp> treemacs-next-page-other-window Go to the next page in next-window. <PgDn> treemacs-previous-page-other-window Go to the previous page in next-window.. M-j/M-n treemacs-next-neighbour Go to the next same-level neighbour of the current node. M-k/M-p treemacs-previous-neighbour Go to the previous same-level neighbour of the current node. u treemacs-goto-parent-node Go to parent of node at point, if possible. <M-Up> treemacs-move-project-up Switch positions of project at point and the one above it. <M-Down> treemacs-move-project-down Switch positions of project at point and the one below it. w treemacs-set-width Set a new value for the width of the treemacs window. < treemacs-decrement-width Decrease the width of the treemacs window. > treemacs-increment-width Increase the width of the treemacs window. RET treemacs-RET-action Run the action defined in treemacs-RET-actions-config for the current node. TAB treemacs-TAB-action Run the action defined in treemacs-TAB-actions-config for the current node. g/r/gr treemacs-refresh Refresh the project at point. d treemacs-delete-file Delete node at point. R treemacs-rename-file Rename node at point. cf treemacs-create-file Create a file. cd treemacs-create-dir Create a directory. q treemacs-quit Hide the treemacs window. Q treemacs-kill-buffer Delete the treemacs buffer. P treemacs-peek-mode Peek at the files at point without fully opening them. ya treemacs-copy-absolute-path-at-point Copy the absolute path of the node at point. yr treemacs-copy-relative-path-at-point Copy the path of the node at point relative to the project root. yp treemacs-copy-project-path-at-point Copy the absolute path of the project root for the node at point. yf treemacs-copy-file Copy the file at point. m treemacs-move-file Move the file at point. s treemacs-resort Set a new value for treemacs-sorting. b treemacs-add-bookmark Bookmark the currently selected files’s, dir’s or tag’s location. h/M-h treemacs-COLLAPSE-action Run the action defined in treemacs-COLLAPSE-actions-config for the current node. l/M-l treemacs-RET-action Run the action defined in treemacs-RET-actions-config for the current node. M-H treemacs-root-up Move treemacs’ root one level upward. Only works with a single project in the workspace. M-L treemacs-root-down Move treemacs’ root into the directory at point. Only works with a single project in the workspace. H treemacs-collapse-parent-node Collapse the parent of the node at point. \! treemacs-run-shell-command-for-current-node Run an asynchronous shell command on the current node, replacing “$path” with its path. M-! treemacs-run-shell-command-in-project-root Run an asynchronous shell command in the root of the current project, replacing “$path” with its path. C treemacs-cleanup-litter Close all directories matching any of treemacs-litter-directories. = treemacs-fit-window-width Adjust the width of the treemacs window to that of the longsest line. W treemacs-extra-wide-toggle Toggle between normal and extra wide display for the treemacs window.
The correctness of treemacs’ display behaviour is, to a large degree, ensured through window properties and reacting to changes in the window configuration. The packages most likely to cause trouble for treemacs are therefore those that interfere with Emacs’ buffer spawning and window splitting behaviour. Treemacs is included in Spacemacs and I am a Spacemacs user, therefore treemacs guarantees first-class support & compatibility for window-managing packages used in Spacemacs, namely persp/perspective, eyebrowse, popwin and window-purpose, as well as shackle. For everything else there may be issues and, depending on the complexity of the problem, I may decide it is not worth fixing.
Aside from this there are the following known incompatibilities:
font-lock-ensure in the treemacs buffer. This will reset the faces of treemacs’ buttons (once) and is a known emacs bug.special-mode-hook, since this is the mode treemacs-mode is derived from.Yes, see the section about Navigation without Projects and Workspace.
You need to define a predicate function and add it to treemacs-ignored-file-predicates. This function accepts two arguments, a file’s name and its absolute path, and must return non-nil when treemacs should hide that file.
For example, the code to ignore files either called “foo” or located in ”x/y/z” would look like this:
(with-eval-after-load 'treemacs
(defun treemacs-ignore-example (filename absolute-path)
(or (string-equal filename "foo")
(string-prefix-p "/x/y/z/" absolute-path)))
(add-to-list 'treemacs-ignored-file-predicates #'treemacs-ignore-example))
You can use treemacs-hide-gitignored-files-mode (bound to ti) to switch between hiding and displaying of gitignored files. Git-mode must be enabled for this feature to work.
Treemacs will permanently fall back on its simple TUI icons if it detects that the emacs instance it is run in cannot create images. You can test this by evaluating (create-image "" 'png). If this code returns an error like “Invalid image type ´png´” your emacs does not support images.
See treemacs-silent-refresh and treemacs-silent-filewatch.
You may run into this error when you use filewatch-mode. The solution is to increase the number of allowed user watches, as described here for Linux and here for Mac.
You will also want to see what’s responsible for setting all those file watches in the first place, since treemacs only watches the expanded directories it is displaying and so won’t produce more than a couple dozen watches at best.
Treemacs needs those colors to make sure that background colors of its icons correctly align with hl-line-mode. Png images’ backgrounds are not highlighted by hl-line-mode by default, treemacs is manually correcting this every time hl-line’s overlay is moved. To make that correction work it needs to know two colors: the current theme’s default background, and its hl-line background color. If treemacs cannot find hl-lines’s background color it falls back to the default background color. If it cannot even find the default background it will fall back to #2d2d31. The warnings serve to inform you of that fallback.
If your theme does not define a required color you can set it yourself before treemacs loads like this:
(set-face-attribute 'hl-line nil :background "#333333")
If you just want to disable the warnings you can do so by defining the variable treemacs-no-load-time-warnings. Its exact value is irrelevant, all that matters is that it exists at all. Since the warnings are issues when treemacs is first being loaded the variable must be defined before treemacs is initialized. This is best achieved by adding the line (defvar treemacs-no-load-time-warnings t) to treemacs’ use-package :init block.
Yes, you just need to expand it with a prefix argument. Closing nodes with a prefix argument works as well. In this case treemacs will forget about the nodes opened below the one that was closed and not reopen them automatically.
If you are seeing raw bytes like \316 instead of proper CJK characters like in this issue you have to set the proper language environment, e.g.:
(set-language-environment 'Chinese-GB18030)
Contributions are very much welcome, but should fit the general scope and style of treemacs. The following is a list of guidelines that should be met (exceptions confirm the rule):
[Icons] if you add an icon.Treemacs uses cask to setup a local testing environment and a Makefile that simplifies compiling and testing the codebase. First run cask install to locally pull treemacs’ dependencies. Then you can use the following Makefile targets:
test and compile targets.
compile then clean, even if the former fails.
Finally if you want to just add an icon you can take this commit as an example (though the icons have since been moved into their own module in treemacs-icons.el).
If you want to delve into the treemacs’ code base, check out the wiki for some general pointers.
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