dir-kill 🗂️

A Rust-based directory management tool that helps you find and manage directories. It provides terminal user interface for discovering directories matching specific patterns.

What it does

dir-kill scans your file system to find directories that match specified patterns. It's particularly useful for finding and deleting stale project directories like node_modules, target, dist, and other build artifacts to help clean up disk space.

TUI keyboard shortcuts

When the terminal UI is active, use these keys:

Key	Action
↑ / ↓ or j / k	Move selection
Home / End	First / last item
← / →	Previous / next page
Space	Toggle selection on current row
a	Select all visible matches
d	Deselect all
s / p / m	Sort by size / path / age (toggle asc/desc)
/	Filter paths (Enter to apply, Esc to cancel)
i or Tab	Toggle details panel
o	Open selected path in file manager
Ctrl+Y	Copy selected path to clipboard
Del, f, or Ctrl+D	Delete current directory (confirmation)
c or Ctrl+Shift+D	Delete selected directories (confirmation)
Esc	Close details panel, clear filter, or quit
q	Quit

The status bar shows discovery progress, sizing progress ([████░░░░] sizing N/M), active filters, sort order, and brief toasts after deletes.

Preferences

dir-kill saves UI preferences to ~/.config/dir-kill/config.toml:

• Default sort column and direction
• Details panel visibility
• Whether to auto-sort by size (desc) once all sizes are calculated

CLI Usage

Basic Commands

# Find all node_modules directories (interactive TUI)
dir-kill ls <pattern> <path-directory (default: .)>

# Plain text output (no TUI)
dir-kill ls node_modules --no-tui

# JSON output for scripts
dir-kill ls node_modules --json

Command Options

dir-kill ls <pattern> [OPTIONS]

OPTIONS:
    -h, --help             Show help information
    -i, --ignore <PATTERNS>    Comma-separated regex patterns for directories to ignore
    --no-tui               Print plain text results instead of launching the TUI
    --json                 Output results as JSON (implies --no-tui)

Examples

# Find node_modules directories
dir-kill ls node_modules

# Find node_modules directories but ignore .git and temp directories
dir-kill ls node_modules --ignore "\.git,temp"

# Find target directories but ignore specific project directories
dir-kill ls target --ignore "important-project,\.cargo"

# Find dist directories with multiple ignore patterns
dir-kill ls dist -i "node_modules,\.git,backup"

Nested Pattern Avoidance

dir-kill automatically avoids nested pattern matches to prevent infinite recursion and redundant results. For example:

• When searching for node_modules, it won't scan inside existing node_modules directories
• When searching for dist, it won't scan inside existing dist directories
• When searching for target, it won't scan inside existing target directories
• .git directories are skipped during scans (unless you are explicitly searching for .git)

This behavior:

• Prevents infinite recursion in deeply nested directory structures
• Improves performance by avoiding redundant scanning
• Reduces noise in results by focusing on top-level matches
• Works automatically for any pattern you search for

Examples:

# Will find /project/node_modules but skip /project/node_modules/some-package/node_modules
dir-kill ls node_modules

# Will find /project/dist but skip /project/dist/build/dist  
dir-kill ls dist

# Will find /project/target but skip /project/target/debug/target
dir-kill ls target

Installation

From Source

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/saiumesh535/dir-kill.git
cd dir-kill
cargo build --release

# Run directly
cargo run -- ls node_modules

From release

1. Download the latest release from here
2. chmod +x dir-kill
3. mv dir-kill /usr/local/bin/dir-kill

dir-kill ls node_modules