feh —
image
viewer and cataloguer
| feh |
[options]
[--]
[files |
directories |
URLs ...] |
This manual documents
feh 3.9.1
Compile-time switches in this build:
- libcurl remote file support enabled
- Xinerama multi-monitor support enabled
- libexif builtin EXIF reader available
- inotify-based auto-reload of changed files enabled
- libmagic disabled
feh is a light-weight, configurable and versatile
image viewer. It is aimed at command line users, but can also be started from
graphical file managers. Apart from viewing images, it can compile text and
thumbnail listings, show (un)loadable files, set X11 backgrounds, and more.
Features include filelists, various image sorting modes, custom action scripts,
and image captions.
feh can be controlled by
configurable keyboard and mouse shortcuts, terminal input and signals. When no
file arguments or filelists are specified and
--start-at is not used,
feh displays all files in the current directory.
EXIF tags are supported either using exiv2 / exifgrep via
--info (see the
USAGE EXAMPLES
section), or as a builtin feature by compiling
feh with exif=1. In this build of
feh, builtin EXIF support is available.
feh is based on various modes, which are selected
at startup by command line options.
Slideshow mode is the default. It opens a window and displays the first image in
it; the slideshow position can be advanced (or otherwise changed) using
keyboard and mouse shortcuts. In slideshow mode, images can be deleted either
from the filelist or from the disk, a changed filelist can also be saved to
the disk and reopened at a later time. An image can also be read from stdin
via “feh -”.
Montage mode forms a montage from the filelist. The resulting image can be
viewed or saved, and its size can be limited by height, width or both.
Index mode forms an index print from the filelist. Image thumbnails are shown
along with the filename, size and dimensions, printed using a truetype font of
your choice. The resulting image can be viewed or saved, and its size can be
limited by height, width or both.
Thumbnail mode is like index mode, but the mini-images are clickable and open
the selected image in a new window.
Multiwindow mode shows images in multiple windows, instead of as a slideshow in
one window. Don't use with a large filelist ;)
List mode doesn't display images. Instead, it outputs an
ls-style listing of the
files in the filelist, including image info such as size, number of pixels,
type, etc. There is also a Customlist mode which prints image info in a custom
format specified by a printf-like format string.
feh can also list either all the loadable files in
a filelist or all the unloadable files. This is useful for preening a
directory.
feh can open any format supported by imlib2, most
notably jpeg, png, pnm, tiff, and bmp. The gif format is also supported, but
only for static images. In case of animations, only the first frame will be
shown. If the convert binary (supplied by ImageMagick) is available, it also
has limited support for many other file types, such as svg, xcf and otf. If
dcraw is available,
feh also supports RAW files
provided by cameras and will display the embedded thumbnails. Use
--conversion-timeout
timeout with a non-negative value to enable
support for these formats.
(optional feature, disabled in this build)
feh can
use libmagic to only pass image files to Imlib2. This feature is disabled in
this build. When using
feh with lots of non-image
files (especially with Imlib2 version 1.6.x or 1.7.0), this can speed up the
detection of non-image files significantly. If you think that Imlib2 can load
a file which
feh has determined to be likely not
an image, set the environment variable “FEH_SKIP_MAGIC” to pass
all files directly to Imlib2, bypassing this check. The environment variable's
value does not matter, it just needs to be set.
-
-A,
--action
[flag][[title]]action
- Specify a shell command as an action to perform on the
image. In slideshow or multiwindow mode, the action will be run when the
action_0 key is pressed, in list mode, it will be run for each file. In
loadable/unloadable mode, it will be run for each loadable/unloadable
file, respectively. In thumbnail mode, clicking on an image will cause the
action to run instead of opening the image.
If flag is “;”,
feh will reload the current image instead of
switching to the next one (slideshow mode) or closing the window
(multiwindow mode) after executing the action. If
[title] is specified (note the literal
“[” and “]”),
--draw-actions will display
title instead of
action in the action list. Note that
title must not start with a space. If it
does, the action is handled as if it did not have a title. This special
case exists for backwards compatibility reasons and makes sure that
actions like “[ -L %F ] && foo” still work.
The action will be executed by /bin/sh. Use format specifiers to refer to
image info, see FORMAT
SPECIFIERS for details. Example usage: “feh -A “mv %F
~/images/%N” *”.
-
--action1
.. --action9
[flag][[title]]action
- Extra actions which can be set and triggered using the
appropriate number key.
- --auto-reload
- (optional feature, enabled in this build) automatically
reload image when the underlying file changes. Note that auto-reload (if
enabled in the build) is on by default. This option is only useful to
re-enable auto-reload after it has been disabled by a preceding
--reload=0 option.
Automatic reload is not supported in montage, index, or thumbnail mode.
- --auto-rotate
- (optional feature, available in this build) (deprecated in
favor of Imlib2's auto-orientation support) Automatically rotate images
based on EXIF data. Does not alter the image files.
Note that Imlib2 version 1.7.5+ performs auto-rotation by itself, so this
option is obsolete on systems with Imlib2 version 1.7.5 or later.
feh currently cannot detect this at
runtime.
-
-Z,
--auto-zoom
- Zoom pictures to screen size in fullscreen / fixed geometry
mode.
-
-x,
--borderless
- Create borderless windows.
-
--cache-size
size
- Set imlib2 in-memory cache to
size MiB. A higher cache size can
significantly improve performance especially for small slide shows,
however at the cost of increased memory consumption.
size must be between 0 and 2048 MiB and
defaults to 4.
-
-P,
--cache-thumbnails
- Enable thumbnail caching. Thumbnails are saved in
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/thumbnails, which defaults to
~/.cache/thumbnails. Note that thumbnails are
only cached if the configured thumbnail size does not exceed 256x256
pixels.
-
-K,
--caption-path
path
- Path to directory containing image captions. This turns on
caption viewing, and if captions are found in
path, which is relative to the directory
of each image, they are overlayed on the displayed image. E.g. with
caption path “captions/”, and viewing image
“images/foo.jpg”, the caption will be looked for in
“images/captions/foo.jpg.txt”.
-
--conversion-timeout
timeout
-
feh can use ImageMagick to try
converting unloadable files into a supported file format. As this can take
a long time, it is disabled by default. Set
timeout to a non-negative value to enable
it. A positive value specifies after how many seconds conversion attempts
should be aborted, zero causes feh to try
indefinitely. Negative values restore the default by disabling conversion
altogether.
-
--class
class
- Set the X11 class hint to
class. Default: feh
-
-L,
--customlist
format
- Don't display images, print image info according to
format instead. See
FORMAT
SPECIFIERS.
-
-G,
--draw-actions
- Draw the defined actions and what they do at the top-left
of the image.
- --draw-exif
- (optional feature, available in this build) display some
EXIF information in the bottom left corner, similar to using
--info with exiv2 / exifgrep.
-
-d,
--draw-filename
- Draw the file name at the top-left of the image.
- --draw-tinted
- Show overlay texts (as created by
--draw-filename et
al) on a semi-transparent background to improve their
readability.
- --edit
- Enable basic editing of files. This makes rotation and
mirroring (bound to “<”, “>”,
“|”, and “_” by default) change the underlying
file and not just its displayed content.
-
-f,
--filelist
file
- This option is similar to the playlists used by music
software. If file exists, it will be read
for a list of files to load, in the order they appear. The format is a
list of image file names, absolute or relative to the current directory,
one file name per line.
If file doesn't exist, it will be created
from the internal filelist at the end of a viewing session. This is best
used to store the results of complex sorts
(-Spixels for
example) for later viewing.
Any changes to the internal filelist (such as deleting a file or it being
pruned for being unloadable) will be saved to
file when
feh exits. You can add files to filelists by
specifying them on the command line when also specifying the list.
If file is “-”,
feh will read the filelist from its standard
input.
-
-e,
--font
font
- Set global font. Should be a truetype font, resident in the
current directory or the font directory, and should be defined in the form
fontname/size, like “yudit/12” (which is the default).
-
-C,
--fontpath
path
- Specify path as extra
directory in which to search for fonts; can be used multiple times to add
multiple paths.
- --force-aliasing
- Disable anti-aliasing for zooming, background setting
etc.
-
-I,
--fullindex
- Same as index mode, but with additional information below
the thumbnails. Works just like “feh --index --index-info
"%n\n%S\n%wx%h"”. Enables
MONTAGE MODE
OPTIONS.
Note: This option needs to load all images to calculate the dimensions of
the feh window, so when using it with many
files it will take a while before a feh
window is visible. Use --preload to get a
progress bar.
-
-F,
--fullscreen
- Make the window fullscreen. Note that in this mode, large
images will always be scaled down to fit the screen, and
--zoom zoom
only affects smaller images and never scales larger than necessary to fit
the screen size. The only exception is a
zoom of 100, in which case images will
always be shown at 100% zoom.
When combined with --thumbnails, this option
only affects images opened from the thumbnail overview. The thumbnail list
itself will still be windowed.
-
-g,
--geometry
width x
height |
+
x +
y | width
x height
+ x
+ y
- Use a fixed window size as specified in the X-style
geometry string, e.g. 640x480. An
optional +x+y window offset can be specified. Combine with
--scale-down to scale down larger images like
in fullscreen mode. Note that this option does not enforce the window
size; changing it by a tiling WM or manually is still possible. However,
auto-resize remains disabled.
-
-Y,
--hide-pointer
- Hide the pointer (useful for slideshows).
-
-B,
--image-bg
style
- Use style as background
for transparent image parts and the like. Accepted values: default,
checks, or an XColor (e.g. “black” or
“#428bdd”). Note that some shells treat the hash symbol as a
special character, so you may need to quote or escape it for the XColor
code to work. In windowed mode, the default is checks (a checkered
background so transparent image parts are easy to see). In fullscreen and
background setting mode, checks is not
accepted and the default is black.
-
-i,
--index
- Enable Index mode. Index mode is similar to montage mode,
and accepts the same options. It creates an index print of thumbnails,
printing the image name beneath each thumbnail. Index mode enables certain
other options, see
INDEX
AND THUMBNAIL MODE OPTIONS and
MONTAGE MODE
OPTIONS.
-
--info
[flag]command_line
- Execute command_line and
display its output in the bottom left corner of the image. Can be used to
display e.g. image dimensions or EXIF information. Supports
FORMAT SPECIFIERS.
If flag is set to “;”, the
output will not be displayed by default, but has to be enabled by the
toggle_info key.
- --insecure
- When viewing files with HTTPS, this option disables all
certificate checks. It allows images on sites with self-signed or expired
certificates to be opened, but is no more secure than plain HTTP.
-
-k,
--keep-http
- When viewing files using HTTP,
feh normally deletes the local copies after
viewing, or, if caching, on exit. This option permanently stores them on
disk, either in the directory specified by
--output-dir, or in the current working
directory.
- --keep-zoom-vp
- When switching images, keep zoom and viewport settings
(zoom level and X, Y offsets)
-
-l,
--list
- Don't display images. Analyze them and display an
ls(1) - style
listing. Useful in scripts to hunt out images of a certain
size/resolution/type etc.
-
-U,
--loadable
- Don't display images. Just print out their names if imlib2
can successfully load them. Returns false if at least one image failed to
load.
-
--max-dimension
width x
height
- Only show images with width <=
width and height <=
height. If you only care about one
parameter, set the other to 0 (or a negative value).
-
-M,
--menu-font
font
- Use font (truetype, with
size, like “yudit/12”) as menu font.
-
--min-dimension
width x
height
- Only show images with width >=
width and height >=
height. If you only care about one
parameter, set the other to 0.
-
-m,
--montage
- Enable montage mode. Montage mode creates a new image
consisting of a grid of thumbnails of the images in the filelist. When
montage mode is selected, certain other options become available. See
MONTAGE MODE
OPTIONS.
-
-w,
--multiwindow
- Disable slideshow mode. With this setting, instead of
opening multiple files in slideshow mode, multiple windows will be opened;
one per file.
- --no-conversion-cache
- When loading images via HTTP, ImageMagick or dcraw,
feh will only load/convert them once and
re-use the cached file on subsequent slideshow passes. This option
disables the cache. It is also disabled when
--reload is used. Use it if you rely on
frequently changing files loaded via one of these sources. Note that it
will impair performance.
- --no-jump-on-resort
- Don't jump to the first image after resorting the
filelist.
-
-N,
--no-menus
- Don't load or show any menus.
- --no-screen-clip
- By default, window sizes are limited to the screen size.
With this option, windows will have the size of the image inside them.
Note that they may become very large this way, making them unmanageable in
certain window managers.
- --no-xinerama
- (optional feature, enabled in this build) Disable Xinerama
support.
-
--on-last-slide
hold |
quit
|
resume
- Select behaviour when trying to select the next image on
the last slide (or the previous image on the first slide) in a slide show.
With hold, feh
will stop advancing images in this case and continue displaying the
first/last image, respectively. This is intended for linear slide shows.
Behaviour is unspecified when using other navigation commands than
previous and next image.
quit will cause
feh to quit when trying to advance past the
last image in the slide show.
resume is the default behaviour: On the last
(first) image, feh will wrap around to the
first (last) image.
-
-j,
--output-dir
directory
- Save files to directory
when using --keep-http or the save_image or
save_filelist command. By default, files are saved in the current working
directory.
-
-p,
--preload
- Preload images. This doesn't mean hold them in RAM, it
means run through them and eliminate unloadable images first. Otherwise
they will be removed as you flick through. This also analyses the images
to get data for use in sorting, such as pixel size, type etc. A preload
run will be automatically performed if you specify one of these sort
modes.
-
-q,
--quiet
- Don't report non-fatal errors for failed loads. Verbose and
quiet modes are not mutually exclusive, the first controls informational
messages, the second only errors.
-
-z,
--randomize
- When viewing multiple files in a slideshow, randomize the
file list before displaying. The list is re-randomized whenever the
slideshow cycles (that is, transitions from last to first image).
-
-r,
--recursive
- Recursively expand any directories in the command line
arguments to the content of those directories, all the way down to the
bottom level.
- --no-recursive
- Don't recursively expand any directories. This is the
default, but this option is useful to override themes containing
--recursive.
-
-R,
--reload
int
- Reload filelist and current image after
int seconds. Useful for viewing HTTP
webcams or frequently changing directories. (Note that filelist reloading
is still experimental.) Set to zero to disable any kind of automatic
reloading.
If an image is removed, feh will either show
the next one or quit. However, if an image still exists, but can no longer
be loaded, feh will continue to try loading
it.
Setting this option causes inotify-based auto-reload to be disabled. Reload
is not supported in montage, index, or thumbnail mode.
-
-n,
--reverse
- Reverse the sort order. Use this to invert the order of the
filelist. E.g. to sort in reverse width order, use
-nSwidth.
-
-.,
--scale-down
- Scale images to fit window geometry (defaults to screen
size when no geometry was specified). Note that the window geometry is not
updated when changing images at the moment. This option is recommended for
tiling window managers. This option is ignored when in fullscreen and
thumbnail list mode.
In tiling environments, this also causes the image to be centered in the
window.
-
--scroll-step
count
- Scroll count pixels
whenever scroll_up, scroll_down, scroll_left or scroll_right is pressed.
Note that this option accepts negative numbers in case you need to reverse
the scroll direction. See
KEYS CONFIG SYNTAX
for how to reverse it permanently. Default: 20
-
-D,
--slideshow-delay
float
- For slideshow mode, wait
float seconds between automatically
changing slides. Useful for presentations. Specify a negative number to
set the delay (which will then be float
* (-1)), but start
feh in paused mode.
-
-S,
--sort
sort_type
- Sort file list according to image parameters. Allowed sort
types are: name,
filename,
dirname, mtime,
width, height,
pixels, size,
format. For sort modes other than
name, filename,
dirname, or
mtime, a preload run is necessary, causing a
delay proportional to the number of images in the list.
mtime starts with the most recently modified
image. width,
height, pixels
and size start with the smallest. Use
--reverse to sort by oldest or largest first.
For name,
filename, and
dirname you can use
--version-sort to sort numbers naturally, so
that e.g. 10.jpg comes after 2.jpg.
-
-|,
--start-at
filename
- Start the filelist at
filename. If no other files or filelists
were specified on the command line, feh will
first load all files from the directory in which
filename resides. This way, it's possible
to look at a specific image and use the next / prev keys to browse through
the directory. See USAGE
EXAMPLES for examples. If filename is
a remote URL and no files or filelists were specified,
feh will show
filename and not attempt to load
additional files or directories.
Note: If you use relative paths in your filelist,
filename should also be a relative path.
If you use absolute paths, it should also be an absolute path. If
feh cannot find an exact match, it will
compare basenames (filenames without the directory suffix). This may lead
to mismatches if several files in your filelist have the same
basename.
-
-T,
--theme
theme
- Load options from config file with name
theme - see
THEMES CONFIG
SYNTAX for more info. Note that command line options always override
theme options. The theme can also be set via the program name (e.g. with
symlinks), so by default feh will look for a
“feh” theme.
-
-t,
--thumbnails
- Same as Index mode, but the thumbnails are clickable image
launchers. Note that --fullscreen and
--scale-down do not affect the thumbnail
window. They do, however, work for image windows launched from thumbnail
mode. Also supports
INDEX
AND THUMBNAIL MODE OPTIONS as well as
MONTAGE MODE
OPTIONS.
-
-~,
--thumb-title
string
- Set title for windows
opened from thumbnail mode. See also
FORMAT
SPECIFIERS.
-
-^,
--title
title
- Set window title. Applies to all windows except those
opened from thumbnail mode. See
FORMAT
SPECIFIERS.
-
-u,
--unloadable
- Don't display images. Just print out their names if imlib2
can NOT successfully load them. Returns false if at least one image was
loadable.
-
-V,
--verbose
- output useful information, progress bars, etc.
-
-v,
--version
- output version information and exit.
- --version-sort
- When combined with --sort
name, --sort filename, or
--sort dirname: use natural sorting for file
and directory names. In this mode, filenames are sorted as an ordinary
human would expect, e.g. “2.jpg” comes before
“10.jpg”. Note that this option only has an effect when a
sort mode is set using --sort.
-
--window-id
windowid
- Draw to an existing X11 window by its ID
windowid. This option is intended for use
with software such as xcreensaver or xsecurelock, which provide a window
for other applications to draw into. Unexpected things will happen if you
specify a window belonging to software which does not expect
feh to draw into it or attempt to use options
or keybindings which affect window attributes, such as full-screen
mode.
-
--xinerama-index
monitor
- (optional feature, enabled in this build) Override
feh's idea of the
active Xinerama monitor. May be useful in certain circumstances where the
window manager places the feh window on Xinerama monitor A while
feh assumes that it will be placed on monitor
B.
In background setting mode: When used with any option other than
--bg-tile: Only set wallpaper on
monitor. All other monitors will be
filled black/white. This is most useful in a Xinerama configuration with
overlapping monitors. For instance, assume you have two overlapping
displays (index 0 and 1), where index 0 is smaller. To center a background
on the display with index 0 and fill the extra space on index 1
black/white, use “--xinerama-index 0” when setting the
wallpaper.
Use xrandr --listmonitor to determine how
Xinerama monitor IDs map to screens/monitors in your setup.
-
--zoom
percent |
max
|
fill
- Zoom images by percent
when in full screen mode or when window geometry is fixed. When combined
with --auto-zoom, zooming will be limited to
the specified percent. Specifying
max is like setting
--auto-zoom, using
fill makes feh
zoom the image like the --bg-fill mode.
-
--zoom-step
percent
- Zoom images in and out by
percent (default: 25) when using the zoom
keys and buttons.
These additional options can be used for index, montage and (partially)
thumbnail mode.
-
-a,
--alpha
int
- When drawing thumbnails onto the background, set their
transparency level to int (0 - 255).
-
-b,
--bg file |
trans
- Use file as background for
your montage. With this option specified, the montage size will default to
the size of file if no size restrictions
were specified. Alternatively, if file is
“trans”, the background will be made transparent.
-
-X,
--ignore-aspect
- By default, the montage thumbnails will retain their aspect
ratios, while fitting into thumb-width/-height. This options forces them
to be the size set by --thumb-width
and --thumb-height.
This will prevent any empty space in the final montage.
-
-H,
--limit-height
pixels
- Limit the height of the montage.
-
-W,
--limit-width
pixels
- Limit the width of the montage, defaults to 800 pixels.
If both --limit-width
and --limit-height
are specified, the montage will be exactly
width x
height pixels in dimensions.
-
-o,
--output
file
- Save the created montage to
file.
-
-O,
--output-only
file
- Just save the created montage to
file without displaying it.
-
-s,
--stretch
- Normally, if an image is smaller than the specified
thumbnail size, it will not be enlarged. If this option is set, the image
will be scaled up to fit the thumbnail size. Aspect ratio will be
maintained unless --ignore-aspect is
specified.
-
-E,
--thumb-height
pixels
- Set thumbnail height.
-
-y,
--thumb-width
pixels
- Set thumbnail width.
In addition to
MONTAGE
MODE OPTIONS --alpha,
--bg,
--limit-height,
--limit-width,
--output,
--output-only,
--thumb-height,
--thumb-width, the following options can be used.
-
--index-info
format
- Show image information based on
format below thumbnails in index /
thumbnail mode. See
FORMAT SPECIFIERS.
May contain newlines. Use “--index-info ''” to display
thumbnails without any info text
Note: If you specify image-related formats (such as %w or %s),
feh needs to load all images to calculate the
dimensions of its own window. So when using them with many files, it will
take a while before a feh window becomes
visible. Use --preload to get a progress
bar.
-
-@,
--title-font
font
- Set font to print a title on the index, if no font is
specified, no title will be printed.
-
-J,
--thumb-redraw
n
- Redraw thumbnail window every
n images while generating thumbnails.
Redrawing takes quite long, so the default is 10. Set
n = 1 to update
the thumbnail window immediately. With n
= 0, there will only be one redraw once all
thumbnails are loaded.
In many desktop environments,
feh can also be used
as a background setter. Unless you pass the
--no-fehbg option, it will write a script to set
the current background to
~/.fehbg. So to have
your background restored every time you start X, you can add “~/.fehbg
&” to your X startup script (such as
~/.xinitrc). Note that the commandline written to
~/.fehbg always includes the
--no-fehbg option to ensure that it is not
inadvertently changed by differences in X11 screen layout or similar.
Note that
feh does not support setting the
wallpaper of GNOME shell desktops. In this environment, you can use
“gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri
file:///
path” instead.
For
--bg-center,
--bg-fill, and
--bg-max, you can use
--geometry to specify an offset from one side of
the monitor instead of centering the image. Positive values will offset from
the left/top side, negative values from the bottom/right. +0 and -0 are both
valid and distinct values.
Note that all options except
--bg-tile support
Xinerama. For instance, if you have multiple monitors connected and use e.g.
--bg-center,
feh
will center or appropriately offset the image on each monitor. You may even
specify more than one file, in that case, the first file is set on monitor 0,
the second on monitor 1, and so on. Use
xrandr
--listmonitor to determine how Xinerama monitor IDs map to screens /
monitors in your setup.
Use
--no-xinerama to treat the whole X display as
one monitor when setting wallpapers. You may also use
--xinerama-index to use
feh as a background setter for a specific
monitor.
- --bg-center
- Center the file on the background. If it is too small, it
will be surrounded by a border as specified by
--image-bg.
- --bg-fill
- Like --bg-scale, but preserves
aspect ratio by zooming the image until it fits. Either a horizontal or a
vertical part of the image will be cut off
- --bg-max
- Like --bg-fill, but scale the
image to the maximum size that fits the screen with borders on one side.
The border color can be set using
--image-bg.
- --bg-scale
- Fit the file into the background without repeating it,
cutting off stuff or using borders. But the aspect ratio is not preserved
either
- --bg-tile
- Tile (repeat) the image in case it is too small for the
screen
- --no-fehbg
- Do not write a ~/.fehbg
file
- %a
- Information about slideshow state (playing/paused)
- %f
- Image path/filename
- %F
- Escaped image path/filename (for use in shell
commands)
- %g
- w,h window dimensions in pixels (mnemonic: geometry)
- %h
- Image height
- %l
- Total number of files in filelist
- %L
- Temporary copy of filelist. Multiple uses of %L within the
same format string will return the same copy.
- %m
- Current mode
- %n
- Image name
- %N
- Escaped image name
- %o
- x,y offset of top-left image corner to window corner in
pixels
- %p
- Number of image pixels
- %P
- Number of image pixels in human-readable format with k/M
(kilopixels / megapixels) suffix
- %r
- Image rotation. A half right turn equals pi.
- %s
- Image size in bytes
- %S
- Human-readable image size (kB / MB)
- %t
- Image format
- %u
- Number of current file
- %w
- Image width
- %v
-
feh version
- %V
- Process ID
- %z
- Current image zoom, rounded to two decimal places
- %Z
- Current image zoom, higher precision
- %%
- A literal %
feh has three config files:
themes for theme definitions,
keys for key bindings and
buttons for mouse button bindings. It will try to
read them from
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/feh/, which (when
XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset) defaults to
~/.config/feh/. If the files are not found in
that directory, it will also try
/etc/feh/.
All config files treat lines starting with a “#” character as
comments. Comments at the end of a line are not supported.
.config/feh/themes allows the naming of option
groups, called themes.
It takes entries of the form “
theme options
...”, where
theme is the name of
the entry and
options are the options which
will be applied when the theme is used.
Note that the option parser does not behave like a normal shell: filename
expansion and backslash escape sequences are not supported and passed to feh's
option parser as-is. However, quoting of arguments is respected and can be
used for arguments with whitespace. So, the sequence “--info
“foo bar”” works as intended (that is, it display the
string “foo bar”), whereas the option string “--info foo\
bar” will only display “foo\” and complain about the file
bar not existing. Please keep this in mind when writing theme files.
An example entry is “imagemap -rVq --thumb-width 40 --thumb-height 30
--index-info '%n\n%wx%h'”.
You can use this theme in two ways. Either call
“
feh -Timagemap *.jpg”, or create a
symbolic link to
feh with the name of the theme
you want it to use. For the example above, this would be “ln -s `which
feh ` ~/bin/imagemap”. Now just run
“imagemap *.jpg” to use these options.
Note that you can split a theme over several lines by placing a backslash at the
end of an unfinished line. A single option-argument-pair must not span
multiple lines. A single line must not be longer than 1023 characters, but
there's no upper limit for the length of a theme.
Command line options always override theme options.
.config/feh/keys defines key bindings. It has
entries of the form “
action
[
key1
[key2
[key3]]]”.
Each
key is an X11 keysym name as shown by
xev(1), like “Delete”. It may
optionally start with modifiers for things like Control, in which case
key looks like
mod-keysym
(for example “C-Delete” for Ctrl+Delete or
“C-1-Delete” for Ctrl+Alt+Delete)
Available modifiers are
C for
Control,
S for Shift
and 1,
4 for Mod1 and Mod4.
To match an uppercase letter like “S” instead of
“s”, the Shift modifier is not required.
Specifying an
action without any keys unbinds
it (i.e. the default bindings are removed).
Note: Do not use the same keybinding for multiple
actions. When binding an action to a new key (or mouse button), make sure to
unbind it from its previous action, if present.
feh does not check for conflicting bindings, so
their behaviour is undefined.
For a list of the
action names, see
KEYS. Note that not all of the key
names used there correspond to X11 keysyms. Most notably, page up (Prior /
Page_Up), page down (Next / Page_Down) and the keypad keys (KP_*) do not.
The following actions and default key bindings can be used in an image window.
(The strings in [square brackets] are the config action names). If
feh is running inside a terminal and its standard
input is not used for images or filelists, key input from the terminal is also
accepted. However, terminal input support is currently limited to most
alphanumeric characters (0-9 a-z A-Z and some more), arrow keys, return and
backspace. The Alt (Mod1) modifier is also supported.
- a [toggle_actions]
- Toggle actions display (see
--draw-actions)
- A [toggle_aliasing]
- Enable/Disable anti-aliasing
- c [toggle_caption]
- Caption entry mode. If
--caption-path has been specified, then this
enables caption editing. The caption at the bottom of the screen will turn
yellow and can be edited. Hit return to confirm and save the caption, or
escape to cancel editing. Note that you can insert an actual newline into
the caption using ⟨Ctrl+return⟩.
- d [toggle_filenames]
- Toggle filename display (see
--draw-filename)
- e [toggle_exif]
- (optional feature, available in this build) Toggle EXIF tag
display
- f [toggle_fullscreen]
- Toggle fullscreen
- g [toggle_fixed_geometry]
- Enable/Disable automatic window resize when changing
images.
- h [toggle_pause]
- Pause/Continue the slideshow. When it is paused, it will
not automatically change slides based on
--slideshow-delay.
- i [toggle_info]
- Toggle info display (see
--info)
- k [toggle_keep_vp]
- Toggle zoom and viewport keeping. When enabled,
feh will keep zoom and X, Y offset when
switching images.
- L [save_filelist]
- Save the current filelist as
“feh_PID_ID_filelist”. It is saved in the directory
specified by --output-dir, if set, and in the
current working directory otherwise.
- m [toggle_menu]
- Show menu. Use the arrow keys and return to select items,
and ⟨escape⟩ to close the menu.
- n, ⟨space⟩, ⟨Right⟩
[next_img]
- Show next image. Selects the next image in thumbnail
mode.
- o [toggle_pointer]
- Toggle pointer visibility
- p, ⟨BackSpace⟩, ⟨Left⟩
[prev_img]
- Show previous image. Selects the previous image in
thumbnail mode.
- q, ⟨Escape⟩ [quit]
- Quit feh
- r [reload_image]
- Reload current image. Useful for webcams
- s [save_image]
- Save the current image as
“feh_PID_ID_FILENAME”. It is saved in the directory
specified by --output-dir, if set, and in the
current working directory otherwise.
- w [size_to_image]
- Change window size to fit current image size (plus/minus
zoom, if set). In scale-down and fixed-geometry mode, this also updates
the window size limits.
- x [close]
- Close current window
- z [jump_random]
- Jump to a random position in the current filelist
- Z [toggle_auto_zoom]
- Toggle auto-zoom.
- [, ] [prev_dir, next_dir]
- Jump to the first image of the previous or next sequence of
images sharing a directory name in the current filelist. Use --sort
dirname if you would like to ensure that all images in a directory are
grouped together.
- <, > [orient_3, orient_1]
- rotate the image 90 degrees (counter)clockwise.
When --edit is used, this also rotates the
image in the underlying file. Rotation is lossless, but may create
artifacts in some image corners when used with JPEG images. Rotating in
the reverse direction will make them go away. See
jpegtran(1) for more about lossless JPEG
rotation. Note:
feh assumes that this feature is used to
normalize image orientation. For JPEG images, it will unconditionally set
the EXIF orientation tag to 1 (“0,0 is top left”) after
every rotation. See jpegexiforient(1) for
details on how to change this flag.
- _ [flip]
- Vertically flip image. When
--edit is used, this also flips the image in
the underlying file (see above).
- | [mirror]
- Horizontally flip image. When
--edit is used, this also flips the image in
the underlying file (see above).
- 0 .. 9 [action_0 .. action_9]
- Execute the corresponding action (0 =
--action, 1 =
--action1 etc.)
- ⟨Return⟩ [action_0]
- Run the command defined by
--action
- ⟨Home⟩ [jump_first]
- Show first image
- ⟨End⟩ [jump_last]
- Show last image
- ⟨page up⟩ [jump_fwd]
- Go forward ~5% of the filelist
- ⟨page down⟩ [jump_back]
- Go backward ~5% of the filelist
- + [reload_plus]
- Increase reload delay by 1 second
- - [reload_minus]
- Decrease reload delay by 1 second
- ⟨Delete⟩ [remove]
- Remove current file from filelist
- ⟨Ctrl+Delete⟩ [delete]
- Remove current file from filelist and delete it
- ⟨keypad Left⟩, ⟨Ctrl+Left⟩
[scroll_left]
- Scroll to the left
- ⟨keypad Right⟩, ⟨Ctrl+Right⟩
[scroll_right]
- Scroll to the right
- ⟨keypad up⟩, ⟨Ctrl+Up⟩
[scroll_up]
- Scroll up
- ⟨keypad Down⟩, ⟨Ctrl+Down⟩
[scroll_down]
- Scroll down. Note that the scroll keys work without
anti-aliasing for performance reasons; hit the render key after scrolling
to anti-alias the image.
- ⟨Alt+Left [scroll_left_page]⟩
- Scroll to the left by one page
- ⟨Alt+Right [scroll_right_page]⟩
- Scroll to the right by one page
- ⟨Alt+Up [scroll_up_page]⟩
- Scroll up by one page
- ⟨Alt+Down [scroll_down_page]⟩
- Scroll down by one page
- R, ⟨keypad begin⟩ [render]
- Anti-alias the image. Opens the currently selected image in
thumbnail mode.
- ⟨keypad +⟩, ⟨Up⟩ [zoom_in]
- Zoom in
- ⟨keypad -⟩, ⟨Down⟩
[zoom_out]
- Zoom out
- *, ⟨keypad *⟩ [zoom_default]
- Zoom to 100%
- /, ⟨keypad /⟩ [zoom_fit]
- Zoom to fit the window size
- ! [zoom_fill]
- Zoom to fill the window size like
--bg-fill
The following keys bindings are used for the
feh
menu:
- ⟨Escape⟩ [menu_close]
- Close the menu
- ⟨Up⟩ [menu_up]
- Highlight previous menu item
- ⟨Down⟩ [menu_down]
- Highlight next menu item
- ⟨Left⟩ [menu_parent]
- Highlight parent menu item
- ⟨Right⟩ [menu_child]
- Highlight child menu item
- ⟨Return⟩, ⟨space⟩
[menu_select]
- Select highlighted menu item
.config/feh/buttons. This works like the keys
config file: the entries are of the form
“
action
[
binding]”.
Each
binding is a button number. It may
optionally start with modifiers for things like Control, in which case
binding looks like
mod-button
(for example C-1 for Ctrl + Left button).
Note: Do not use the same button for multiple
actions.
feh does not check for conflicting
bindings, so their behaviour is undefined. Either unbind the unwanted action,
or bind it to another unused button. The order in which you bind / unbind does
not matter, though.
For the available modifiers, see
KEYS CONFIGURATION
SYNTAX.
In an image window, the following buttons may be used (The strings in [square
brackets] are the config action names). Additionally, all actions specified in
the
KEYS section can also be bound
to a button.
- unbound [reload]
- Reload current image
- 0 ⟨cursor movement while not panning, zooming, or
similar⟩
- Does not have a default binding. By binding it to
quit, you can turn feh into a simple
screensaver.
- 1 ⟨left mouse button⟩ [pan]
- pan the current image
- 2 ⟨middle mouse button⟩ [zoom]
- Zoom the current image
- 3 ⟨right mouse button⟩ [toggle_menu]
- Toggle menu
- 4 ⟨mousewheel down⟩ [prev_img]
- Show previous image
- 5 ⟨mousewheel up⟩ [next_img]
- Show next image
- Ctrl+1 [blur]
- Blur current image
- Ctrl+2 [rotate]
- Rotate current image
- unbound [zoom_in]
- Zoom in
- unbound [zoom_out]
- Zoom out
Default Bindings: When viewing an image, mouse button 1 pans the image (moves it
around) or, when only clicked, moves to the next image (slideshow mode only).
Quick drags with less than 2px of movement per axis will be treated as clicks
to aid graphics tablet users. Mouse button 2 zooms (click and drag
left->right to zoom in, right->left to zoom out, click once to restore
zoom to 100%) and mouse button 3 opens the menu.
Ctrl+Button 1 blurs or sharpens the image (drag left to blur, right to sharpen);
Ctrl+Button 2 rotates the image around the center point.
A note about pan and zoom modes: In pan mode, if you reach a window border but
haven't yet panned to the end of the image,
feh
will warp your cursor to the opposite border so you can continue panning.
When clicking the zoom button and immediately releasing it, the image will be
back at 100% zoom. When clicking it and moving the mouse while holding the
button down, the zoom will be continued at the previous zoom level. The zoom
will always happen so that the pixel on which you entered the zoom mode
remains stationary. So, to enlarge a specific part of an image, click the zoom
button on that part.
In slideshow and multiwindow mode,
feh handles the
following signals:
SIGUSR1- Slideshow mode: switch to next image; reload current image
if the slideshow consists of a single file. Multiwindow mode: reload all
images.
SIGUSR2- Slideshow mode: switch to previous image; reload current
image if the slideshow consists of a single file. Multiwindow mode: reload
all images.
Here are some examples of useful option combinations. See also:
⟨
https://feh.finalrewind.org/examples/⟩
- feh ~/Pictures
- Show all images in ~/Pictures
- feh -r ~/Pictures
- Recursively show all images found in ~/Pictures and
subdirectories
- feh -rSfilename --version-sort ~/Pictures
- Same as above, but sort naturally. By default, feh will
show files in the string order of their names, meaning e.g. “foo
10.jpg” will come before “foo 2.jpg”. In this case,
they are instead ordered as a human would expect.
- feh -t -Sfilename -E 128 -y 128 -W 1024 ~/Pictures
- Show 128x128 pixel thumbnails, limit window width to 1024
pixels.
- feh -t -Sfilename -E 128 -y 128 -W 1024 -P -C
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/ -e DejaVuSans/8 ~/Pictures
- Same as above, but enable thumbnail caching and use a
smaller font.
- feh -irFarial/14 -O index.jpg ~/Pictures
- Make an index print of ~/Pictures and all directories below
it, using 14 point Arial to write the image info under each thumbnail.
Save the image as index.jpg and don't display it, just exit. Note that
this even works without a running X server
- feh --unloadable -r ~/Pictures
- Print all unloadable images in ~/Pictures, recursively
- feh -f by_width -S width --reverse --list .
- Write a list of all images in the directory to by_width,
sorted by width (widest images first)
- feh -w ~/Pictures/holidays
- Open each image in ~/Pictures/holidays in its own
window
- feh -FD5 -Sname ~/Pictures/presentation
- Show the images in .../presentation, sorted by name, in
fullscreen, automatically change to the next image after 5 seconds
- feh -rSwidth -A “mv %F ~/images/%N”
~/Pictures
- View all images in ~/Pictures and below, sorted by width,
move an image to ~/image/image_name when enter is pressed
- feh --start-at ~/Pictures/foo.jpg
- View all images in ~/Pictures, starting with foo.jpg. All
other images are still in the slideshow and can be viewed normally
- feh --start-at ~/Pictures/foo.jpg ~/Pictures
- Same as above.
- feh --info "exifgrep
'(Model|DateTimeOriginal|FNumber|ISO|Flash)' %F | cut -d . -f 4-"
.
- Show some EXIF information, extracted by
exifprobe/exifgrep
- feh --action 'rm %F' -rl --max-dimension 1000x800
- Recursively remove all images with dimensions below or
equal to 1000x800 pixels from the current directory.
- feh -L '%w %h %f' | awk '{ if ($1 > $2) { print $0 } }'
| cut -d ' ' -f 3- | feh -f -
- Show landscape pictures (image width greater than height)
in the current directory.
When
--edit is used,
feh needs the
jpegtran and
jpegexiforient binaries (usually distributed in
“libjpeg-progs” or similar) for lossless JPEG rotation.
To view images from URLs such as "http://",
feh must be compiled with libcurl support. It is
enabled in this build
Imlib2 releases prior to 1.7.4 are unable to load gif, tiff, and webp images if
the filename does not end with gif, tiff, or webp, respectively. Notably, this
means that feh is unable to show gif, tiff, and webp images from stdin or
network URLs on systems using an Imlib2 version older than 1.7.4.
Imlib2 releases 1.7.5+ automatically rotate images based on their EXIF tags.
When combined with the
--auto-rotate option, this
causes images to be rotated twice and end up in an incorrect orientation. As a
workaround, do not use
--auto-rotate on systems
with Imlib2 version 1.7.5 or later.
On systems with giflib 5.1.2,
feh may be unable to
load gif images. For affected mips, mipsel and arm devices, gif support is
completely broken, while on x86 / x86_64 gifs can usually only be loaded if
they are the first image in the filelist. This appears to be a bug in giflib,
see ⟨
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=813729⟩
for details. Workaround: Use
--conversion-timeout
5 (or some other positive value) to load gifs with imagemagick instead, or
downgrade to giflib 5.1.1, or upgrade to giflib 5.1.4.
While loading images using libcurl,
feh will not
react to key or mouse actions.
Thumbnail mode is somewhat inefficient, and because of that not nearly as fast
as it could be.
--scale-down does not take window decorations into
account and may therefore make the window slightly too large.
If you find a bug, please report it to ⟨
[email protected]⟩
or via ⟨
https://github.com/derf/feh/issues⟩.
Please include the feh version ⟨the output of “feh
--version”⟩, steps to reproduce the bug and, if necessary,
images to reproduce it. Note that
feh is a hobby
project, so bug reports may be addressed with significant delays.
Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 by Paul Duncan. Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 by Tom Gilbert
and contributors. Copyright (C) 2010-2020 by Daniel Friesel and contributors.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies of the Software and its documentation and acknowledgment shall be given
in the documentation and software packages that this Software was used.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO
EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR
IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Current developer: Daniel Friesel ⟨
[email protected]⟩
Original author (no longer developing): Tom Gilbert
⟨
[email protected]⟩
Website:
https://feh.finalrewind.org