handlr

Manage your default applications with ease using handlr!

Features

• Set default handler by extension or mime-type
• Intelligent mime type detection from files based on extension and content
• Open multiple files at once
• Set multiple handlers for mime/extension and use rofi/dmenu to pick one
• List default associations
• Automatically removes invalid/wrong .desktop entries from mimeapps.list
• Helper commands like launch, get --json for your scripting needs
• Unnecessarily fast (written in Rust)
• Single compiled binary with no dependencies

Usage

# Open a file/URL
handlr open ~/.dotfiles/pacman/packages.txt
handlr open https://google.ca

# Set default handler for png files
handlr set .png feh.desktop

# Set default handler based on mime
handlr set application/pdf evince.desktop

# List default apps
handlr list

# Get the handler for a mime/extension
$ handlr get .png
feh.desktop

# Launch a handler with given path/URL
handlr launch x-scheme-handler/https -- https://google.ca

Compared to xdg-utils

• Can open multiple files/URLs at once
• Can have multiple handlers and use rofi/dmenu to pick one at runtime
• Far easier to use with simple commands like get, set, list
• Can operate on extensions, no need to look up or remember mime types
  • useful for common tasks like setting a handler for png/docx/etc files
• Superb autocomplete (currently just fish), including mimes, extensions, and .desktop files
• Optional json output for commands like get

Setting multiple handlers

1. Open ~/.config/handlr/handlr.toml and set enable_selector = true. Optionally, you can also tweak the selector to your selector command (using e.g. rofi or dmenu).

2. Add a second/third/whatever handler using handlr add, for example

handlr add x-scheme-handler/https firefox-developer-edition.desktop

3. Now in this example when you open a URL, you will be prompted to select the desired application.

Screenshots

Installation

Arch Linux

yay -S handlr-bin

Optionally you can also install xdg-utils-handlr to replace xdg-open:

yay -S xdg-utils-handlr

Rust/Cargo

cargo install handlr

Binaries

1. Download the latest release binary and put it somewhere in $PATH
2. Download completions:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chmln/handlr/master/completions/handlr.fish --create-dirs -o ~/.config/fish/completions/handlr.fish

Attribution

Icons made by Eucalyp from www.flaticon.com

Cover photo by creativebloq.com