A modern, full-featured terminal text editor, with zero configuration. Familiar keybindings, mouse support, and IDE-level features — no learning curve required.

Official Website  ·  Documentation  ·  Discord  ·  Contributing

Quick Install:   curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sinelaw/fresh/refs/heads/master/scripts/install.sh | sh

Fresh brings the intuitive UX of VS Code and Sublime Text to the terminal. Standard keybindings, full mouse support, menus, and a command palette — everything works the way you'd expect, right out of the box. No modes, no memorizing shortcuts.

Built for real-world performance: Fresh handles multi-gigabyte files with negligible memory overhead and delivers consistently low-latency input, regardless of file size.

Command Palette & Fuzzy Finder

One shortcut to find files, run commands, switch buffers, and jump to any line.

Multi-Cursor Editing

Select and edit multiple occurrences simultaneously — the same workflow you know from graphical editors.

Themes & Customization

Browse and apply color themes instantly. Full settings UI and interactive keybinding editor included.

See more feature demos: Editing (search & replace, block selection, sort lines, ...) · Productivity (file explorer, split view, integrated terminal, ...) · Themes

Feature Overview

Installation

Quick install (autodetect best method):

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sinelaw/fresh/refs/heads/master/scripts/install.sh | sh

Or, pick your preferred method:

Brew

On macOS and some linux distros (Bazzite/Bluefin/Aurora):

Note: On macOS, see macOS Terminal Tips for recommended terminal configuration.

brew tap sinelaw/fresh
brew install fresh-editor

Windows (winget)

winget install fresh-editor

Alternatively, Windows users can use npm.

Arch Linux (AUR)

Binary package (recommended, faster install):

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/fresh-editor-bin.git
cd fresh-editor-bin
makepkg --syncdeps --install

Build from source:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/fresh-editor.git
cd fresh-editor
makepkg --syncdeps --install

Using an AUR helper (such as yay or paru):

# Binary package (recommended, faster install)
yay -S fresh-editor-bin

# Or build from source
yay -S fresh-editor

Debian/Ubuntu (.deb)

Download and install the latest release:

curl -sL $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/sinelaw/fresh/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*_$(dpkg --print-architecture)\.deb" | cut -d '"' -f 4) -o fresh-editor.deb && sudo dpkg -i fresh-editor.deb

Or download the .deb file manually from the releases page.

Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE (.rpm)

Download and install the latest release:

curl -sL $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/sinelaw/fresh/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*\.$(uname -m)\.rpm" | cut -d '"' -f 4) -o fresh-editor.rpm && sudo rpm -U fresh-editor.rpm

Or download the .rpm file manually from the releases page.

Gentoo (GURU)

Enable the repository as read in Project:GURU/Information for End Users then emerge the package:

emerge --ask app-editors/fresh

AppImage

Download the .AppImage file from the releases page and run:

chmod +x fresh-editor-VERSION-x86_64.AppImage
./fresh-editor-VERSION-x86_64.AppImage

For faster startup (recommended): Extract the AppImage instead of running it directly. This avoids the FUSE mount overhead on each launch (~10x faster):

./fresh-editor-VERSION-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/fresh-editor ~/.local/bin
mv squashfs-root/* ~/.local/share/fresh-editor/
ln -sf ~/.local/share/fresh-editor/usr/bin/fresh ~/.local/bin/fresh

Ensure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH. Available for x86_64 and aarch64 architectures.

Flatpak

Download the .flatpak bundle from the releases page and install:

flatpak install --user fresh-editor-VERSION-x86_64.flatpak
flatpak run io.github.sinelaw.fresh

See flatpak/README.md for building from source.

Pre-built binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from the releases page.

npm

npm install -g @fresh-editor/fresh-editor

Or try it without installing:

npx @fresh-editor/fresh-editor

Using cargo-binstall

To install the binary directly without compiling (much faster than crates.io):

First, install cargo-binstall if you haven't already

cargo install cargo-binstall

Then install fresh

cargo binstall fresh-editor

Nix flakes

Run without installing:

nix run github:sinelaw/fresh

Or install to your profile:

nix profile add github:sinelaw/fresh

From crates.io

cargo install --locked fresh-editor

From source

git clone https://github.com/sinelaw/fresh.git
cd fresh
cargo build --release
./target/release/fresh [file]

Documentation

• User Guide
• macOS Tips - Terminal configuration, keyboard shortcuts, and troubleshooting for Mac users
• Plugin Development

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Privacy

Fresh checks for new versions daily to notify you of available upgrades. Alongside this, it sends basic anonymous telemetry (version, OS/architecture, terminal type) to help understand usage patterns. No personal data or file contents are collected.

To disable both upgrade checks and telemetry, use --no-upgrade-check or set check_for_updates: false in your config.

License

Copyright (c) Noam Lewis

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPL-2.0).