Fuzzy file search in linux console

You may find fzf useful. It's a general purpose fuzzy finder written in Go that can be used with any list of things: files, processes, command history, git branches, etc.

Its install script will setup CTRL-T keybinding for your shell. The following GIF shows how it works.

Most of these answers won't do fuzzy searching like sublime text does it -- they may match part of the answer, but they don't do the nice 'just find all the letters in this order' behavior.

I think this is a bit closer to what you want. I put together a special version of cd ('fcd') that uses fuzzy searching to find the target directory. Super simple -- just add this to your bashrc:

function joinstr { local IFS="$1"; shift; echo "$*"; }
function fcd { cd $(joinstr \* $(echo "$*" | fold -w1))* }

This will add an * between each letter in the input, so if I want to go to, for instance,

/home/dave/results/sample/today

I can just type any of the following:

fcd /h/d/r/spl/t
fcd /h/d/r/s/t
fcd /h/d/r/sam/t
fcd /h/d/r/s/ty

Using the first as an example, this will execute cd /*h*/*d*/*r*/*s*p*l*/*t* and let the shell sort out what actually matches.

As long as the first character is correct, and one letter from each directory in the path is written, it will find what you're looking for. Perhaps you can adapt this for your needs? The important bit is:

$(joinstr \* $(echo "$*" | fold -w1))*

which creates the fuzzy search string.

The fasd shell script is probably worth taking a look at too.

fasd offers quick access to files and directories for POSIX shells. It is inspired by tools like autojump, z and v. Fasd keeps track of files and directories you have accessed, so that you can quickly reference them in the command line.

It differs a little from a complete find of all files, as it only searches recently opened files. However it is still very useful.