File Browser

The File Browser.

Introduction

The File Browser is used in all the file-related operations. These include:

• Opening and saving blend-files.
• Browsing inside other blend-files, when appending or linking data-blocks, see Linked Libraries.
• Importing from/exporting to other file formats.
• Picking new locations for existing file paths (images, videos, fonts...).

The most common way to use this editor is through modal operators (like opening or saving a blend-file). It will appear maximized, waiting for the operation to complete, and then close and return to the former screen layout.

Note

You can always select several entries in the File Browser, the last selected one is considered as the active one. If the calling operation expects a single path (like e.g. the main blend-file Open one), it will get that active item's path, other selected ones will just be ignored.

You can also keep the File Browser open, as any other editor type, to browse through the file system. The main purpose of this is to be able to drag-and-drop media files:

• Images into the 3D Viewport (to set as background or apply as material texture).
• Media files into the Video Editing.

Header

Navigation icon buttons

Tools for navigation of files.

Left Arrow Backspace, Alt-Left

Move to previous folder (in navigation history).

Right Arrow Shift-Backspace, Alt-Right

Move to next folder (in navigation history).

Up Arrow P, Alt-Up

Move up to parent directory.

Cycle Arrows R, NumpadPeriod

Refresh current folder.

Create Directory I

Will ask you to confirm and create a new directory inside current one, scroll to it in the main view, and let you enter its name.

Display type

Controls how files are displayed.

• Short List only shows file names.
• Long List adds date/time and size information.
• Thumbnails shows previews.

Sorting

Sorts items by one of the four proposed methods (alphabetically, by types, by dates, or by size):

Show hidden H

Shows hidden files (starting with a .).

View Menu

Display size

The size of the thumbnails, or the width of the columns.

Recursion

The number of directory levels to show at once in a flat way.

• None (default, shows only the current directory content)
• Blend File (the whole content of a blend-file, only available when linking or appending data-blocks)
• One Levels
• Two Levels
• Three Levels

Hint

Showing several levels of directories at once can be handy to e.g. see your whole collection of textures, even if you have arranged them in a nice set of directories to avoid having hundreds of files in a single place.

In the Append/Link case, showing the content of the whole blend-file will allow you to link different types of data-blocks in a single operation.

Warning

The more levels you show at once, the more time it will take to list them all (typically, it will be exponential, showing three levels at once may take three orders of magnitude more time to be fully listed).

File Filtering

To the right of the header are the filtering options.

The first "funnel" button controls whether filtering is enabled or not.

File Types

Filters files by categories, like folders, blend-files, images, etc.

Data-Block Types

When appending or linking, you can also filter by data-block categories, like scenes, animations, materials, etc.

Search field

Filter items by name. The wildcard * will match anything, e.g. bl*er will match both blender and blogger. There is always an implicit wildcard at start and end of the search string, so blender will also match test_blender_file.blend. This field can also be used to filter some specific file extension (e.g. .png will list all PNG files).

File Region

File Path

Text field for the current folder path. Tab will auto-complete an existing path. If you type a non existing directory path, you will be prompted to create that new directory.

File Name

Text field to edit the file name and extension. When saving, if the background is red, a file with same name already exists in the folder. Tab will auto-complete to existing names in the current directory.

Increment Filename +, -

Adds/increases or removes/decreases a trailing number to your file name (used e.g. to store different versions of a file).

Confirm Return

The main button to validate the operation, which defines its name. Double-clicking on a non-directory item will have the same effect.

Cancel Esc

Cancels the file selection (and the underlying operation), and closes the File Browser. Using the Back to Previous button in the Topbar will have the same effect.

Toolbar

The left region is divided in two areas, Bookmarks on top, and the Operator panel at the bottom.

Bookmarks

The top one displays different ways to quickly access some directories, in four lists. Clicking on one of the shortcut entries will immediately navigate to that folder.

Volumes

Contains all OS-defined available volumes, e.g. drives or network mounts.

System

Contains OS-defined common directories, like the main user folder...

Favorites

Contains folders that you want to be able to access often without having to navigate to them in the File Browser. To the right of that list are buttons to perform basic management actions on your favorites, e.g. add/remove an entry, move it up or down in the list, etc.

Recent

Contains recently accessed folders. The X button to the right allows you to fully erase this list.

You can control how many folders appear in this list with the Recent Files number field of the Save & Load tab in the Preferences.

Operator Panel

Shows the options of the calling operator. Besides common actions listed below, many import/export add-ons will also expose their options there.

Open, Save, Save As Blender File

See Blend Files.

Open, Replace, Save As Image

See Supported Graphics Formats.

Link/Append from Library

See Linked libraries.

For the common option:

Relative Path

See Relative Paths.

Main Region

Navigation

Entering a Directory

A single LMB click on a directory enters it.

Parent Directory P

Takes you up one level of directory.

File Drop

You can also drag & drop a file or directory from your local file explorer into the Blender File Browser. This will relocate it to the directory of the dropped file, and the file will be selected.

Selection

Select

Both LMB and RMB clicks work. Holding Shift will extend the items selection.

(De)select All A

Toggles selecting all files.

Dragging

Dragging with LMB starts a box selection.

Arrow Keys

It is also possible to select/deselect files by "walking" through them using the arrow keys:

• Just using an arrow key, the next file in the chosen direction will be selected and all others deselected.
• Holding down Shift while doing this does not deselect anything so it extends to the selection, plus it allows to deselect files by navigating into a block of already selected ones (minimum two files in sequence).
• Holding down Shift-Ctrl further selects/deselects all files in between.

If no file is selected, the arrow key navigation selects the first or last file in the directory, depending on the arrow direction.

If you select a directory and hit Return, you will go into that directory (and highlighting 'parent' .. entry will bring you up one level).

File Management

Delete Files Delete, X

Delete the currently selected files.

Rename Ctrl-LMB

Can be used on a file or directory to rename it.

Warning

Be careful, there is no way to undo those actions!

Previews

The File Browser in Thumbnail mode.

In its Thumbnail display mode, the File Browser supports many types of previews. These include:

• Image and video formats
• Fonts
• Blend-files
• Internal Data-blocks

See Blend-files Previews for how to manage blender data previews.