Filtering and Search

Sort entries, filter by name, size, time, type, and Git rules, save presets, and search file contents with ripgrep.

Filtering and search

Use filters to select directory entries before formatting them. Use content search to find matching text inside files. Content search has a deliberately narrower set of compatible listing filters, documented below.

Sort entries

lla --sort name
lla --sort size --sort-reverse
lla --sort date --sort-dirs-first
lla --sort-natural
lla --sort-case-sensitive

--sort accepts name, size, or date. Natural sorting orders numbered names such as 2.txt before 10.txt.

Filter names and extensions

lla --filter "test"
lla --filter ".rs"
lla --filter "regex:^test.*\.rs$"
lla --filter "glob:*.{rs,toml}"

Name filters are case-insensitive unless --case-sensitive is set. Supported compositions include:

Filter by size or time

lla --size ">10M"
lla --size "512K..2G"
lla --size "..100K"
lla --modified "<7d"
lla --created "2023-01-01..2023-12-31"

Size filters accept human-readable units and open or closed ranges. Modified and created filters accept relative durations and ISO date ranges.

Filter by entry type and visibility

--show-symlinks includes symlinks whose targets match --dirs-only or --files-only. --all shows dotfiles; --almost-all shows dotfiles except . and ...

lla --dirs-only --dotfiles-only
lla --files-only --no-dotfiles
lla --files-only --show-symlinks

Respect .gitignore

lla --respect-gitignore
lla --no-gitignore

The first option applies repository .gitignore and Git exclude rules. The second overrides an enabled configuration default for one run.

[filter]
respect_gitignore = true

Presets and refinements

Define a reusable preset in ~/.config/lla/config.toml:

[filter.presets.rust_sources]
description = "Rust source files changed in the last week"
filter = ".rs"
modified = "<7d"

Apply it with lla --preset rust_sources. Repeat --refine <filter> to apply additional name or path filters sequentially after the normal listing and plugin-decoration pipeline. Every refinement must match. Despite the historical CLI wording about a cache, the current implementation still walks the filesystem normally.

Search file contents

lla --search "TODO"
lla --search "TODO" --search-context 5
lla --search "regex:^func.*\("
lla --search "Error" --filter ".rs" --case-sensitive
lla --search "FIXME" --json

Content search uses literal matching by default. Prefix the pattern with regex: to enable regular expressions. Human output includes file paths, line numbers, themed syntax highlighting, context, and match indicators.

Search honors case sensitivity, configured hidden-file behavior, --no-dotfiles, and --almost-all. --dotfiles-only is not applied. --filter is applied only when it is a simple extension such as .rs or a glob: pattern. A single preset can supply one of those compatible name filters, but preset size, date, and refinement criteria are ignored. Multiple preset name filters are combined into an expression that search does not map to ripgrep. --dirs-only and --no-files return no search results because ripgrep searches file contents. Size/date flags, refinements, complex name expressions, and the other entry-type filters are not applied to content search.

Search currently always applies Git ignore rules, including when --no-gitignore is supplied. Configured exclude_paths reliably match when the search root is absolute; with a relative root such as ., absolute configured exclusions may not match the walker paths. Use an absolute search root when those exclusions matter:

lla "$(pwd)" --search "TODO"

Search supports JSON, NDJSON, and CSV, but their search-specific records differ from listing records. See Search results.

Send search matches to a plugin

lla --search "TODO" --search-pipe file_tagger:list-tags
lla --search "TODO" --search-pipe file_organizer:organize:type

The syntax is plugin:action[:arg...]. Matching file paths are appended to the plugin action arguments. See Plugins for installation, permissions, and typed actions.