mime-tui is a keyboard-driven TUI for managing the associations between MIME types and applications that are consulted by file managers and xdg-open. It is aimed particularly at users who want direct control over these associations without relying on a desktop environment’s graphical settings tools.
The application reads the XDG MIME association hierarchy but limits its own changes to the user’s mimeapps.list file. This makes it possible to inspect system and desktop-specific defaults while keeping edits contained in user configuration. It also highlights stale associations that point to applications which are no longer installed, helping clean up configuration accumulated over time.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Two browse modes let users work by MIME type or by application.
- Live fuzzy search helps navigate large collections of MIME types and installed applications.
- Inline edits are accumulated in memory and previewed before they are written.
- Added and removed associations are visually distinguished while editing.
- A final review screen shows pending changes before saving.
- Atomic writes use a temporary file and maintain a rolling backup.
- External changes to MIME configuration are detected before saving and merged when possible.
- Conflicting concurrent changes cause the save to be refused rather than silently overwriting data.
- Reads the full XDG priority chain, including desktop-specific and system-wide association files.
- Warns when a higher-priority override would shadow a user-level change.
- Caches parsed desktop files in SQLite to improve subsequent startup times.
- Supports configurable themes, borders, colours, cursor styles and search-bar placement.
- Mouse selection and scrolling are available alongside keyboard controls.
Website: github.com/bcorrigan/mime-tui
Support:
Developer: Barry Corrigan
License: MIT License
mime-tui is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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