How to open a file then close Yazi?

[drewlwhitney]

What system are you running Yazi on?

Linux Wayland

What terminal are you running Yazi in?

wezterm 20260331-040028-577474d8

yazi --debug output

Yazi
    Version  : 26.5.6 (Arch Linux 2026-05-10)
    Debug    : false
    Triple   : x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (linux-x86_64)
    Rustc    : 1.95.0 (59807616 2026-04-14)
    Backtrace: None

Ya
    Version: 26.5.6 (Arch Linux 2026-05-10)

Config
    Init             : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/init.lua (308 chars)
    Yazi             : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/yazi.toml (346 chars)
    Keymap           : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/keymap.toml (8523 chars)
    Theme            : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/theme.toml (74 chars)
    VFS              : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/vfs.toml (No such file or directory (os error 2))
    Package          : /home/drewl/.config/yazi/package.toml (955 chars)
    Dark/light flavor: ArcSwapAny("nord") / ArcSwapAny("")

Emulator
    TERM                : Some("wezterm")
    TERM_PROGRAM        : Some("WezTerm")
    TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION: Some("20260331-040028-577474d8")
    Brand.from_env      : Some(WezTerm)
    Emulator.detect     : Emulator { kind: Left(WezTerm), version: "WezTerm 20260331-040028-577474d8", light: false, csi_16t: (9, 21), force_16t: false }

Adapter
    Adapter.matches    : Iip
    Dimension.available: Dimension { rows: 47, columns: 103, width: 927, height: 987 }

Desktop
    XDG_SESSION_TYPE           : Some("wayland")
    WAYLAND_DISPLAY            : Some("wayland-1")
    DISPLAY                    : Some(":0")
    SWAYSOCK                   : None
    HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE: None
    WAYFIRE_SOCKET             : None

SSH
    shared.in_ssh_connection: false

WSL
    WSL: false

Variables
    SHELL              : Some("/bin/bash")
    EDITOR             : Some("code")
    VISUAL             : None
    YAZI_FILE_ONE      : None
    YAZI_CONFIG_HOME   : None
    YAZI_ZOXIDE_OPTS   : None
    SSH_AUTH_SOCK      : Some("/run/user/1000/wezterm/agent.362812")
    FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS   : None
    FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND: None

Text Opener
    default     : Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(3), run: NonEmptyString("${EDITOR:-vi} %s"), block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true })
    block-create: Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(3), run: NonEmptyString("${EDITOR:-vi} %s"), block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true })
    block-rename: Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(3), run: NonEmptyString("${EDITOR:-vi} %s"), block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true })

Multiplexers
    TMUX               : false
    tmux version       : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    tmux build flags   : enable-sixel=Unknown
    ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME: None
    Zellij version     : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Dependencies
    file          : 5.47
    ueberzugpp    : 2.9.8
    ffmpeg/ffprobe: 8.1.1 / 8.1.1
    pdftoppm      : 26.05.0
    magick        : 7.1.2-23
    fzf           : 0.72.0
    fd/fdfind     : 10.4.2 / No such file or directory (os error 2)
    rg            : 15.1.0
    chafa         : 1.18.2
    zoxide        : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    7zz/7z        : No such file or directory (os error 2) / 26.01
    resvg         : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    jq            : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Clipboard
    wl-copy/paste: 2.3.0 / 2.3.0
    xclip        : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    xsel         : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Routine
    `file -bL --mime-type`: text/plain

Describe the question

There was a similar question for Zed integration, but this is just for normal use.

I would love to have a keybinding that opens the selected files (like Enter), then closes Yazi. I've tried this:

{ on = "<C-o>", run = ["open", "quit"] }

but this causes Yazi to close before any files are opened. I've also tried setting orphan = true for my opener, i.e.

[opener]
open =[
    { run = "xdg-open %s1", desc = "Open", for = "linux", orphan = true },
]

but this has no effect. Is there any way to open the files before Yazi closes? I suppose I could spawn a shell command but that seems janky

Anything else?

No response

Checklist

• I have read all the documentation
• I have searched the existing discussions/issues

[sxyazi]

Try:

{ on = "<C-o>", run = "open" }

with

[opener]
open = [
    { run = "xdg-open %s1; ya emit quit", desc = "Open", for = "linux" },
]

which tells Yazi to quit after xdg-open call with the Ya CLI.

[drewlwhitney]

I ended up adding this to the keymap as

{ on = "<C-o>", run = ["open", 'shell "ya emit close --no-cwd-file"'], desc = "Open selected files and close" },

with the default [opener] settings. This lets me open files while still keeping Yazi open if I want.

Unless this is a bad way to do this, I'll mark this as answered tomorrow. Thank you!

[drewlwhitney]

Wait, I actually just encountered an edge case. If I want to do open --interactive, the window will close before the selection is made. Is there a way to wait for Yazi to finish an action? Not a problem if there isn't; the interactive opening is less important to me

[sxyazi]

Yazi doesn't know when you picked a method to open since that's a user behavior, so for open --interactive you'd need to move the ya emit to the [pick] section since that's the component you're interacting with:

[[pick.prepend_keymap]]
on = "<Enter>"
run = [ "close --submit", "mgr:shell -- ya emit close --no-cwd-file" ]
desc = "Submit the pick"

[drewlwhitney]

That does the trick!

I modified my yazi.toml to include

[opener]
# copied from https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/blob/main/yazi-config/preset/yazi-default.toml
open = [
    { run = "xdg-open %s1", desc = "Open", for = "linux", orphan = true }, # ← `orphan = true` is necessary
    { run = 'start "" %s1', desc = "Open", for = "windows", orphan = true }
]

so Yazi won't prompt me to close when opening another file manager.

Yazi is perfect, thank you for making such a wonderful TUI ❤️