olddirs.nvim

olddirs.nvim is like :oldfiles, but for directories. It provides autocommands which store the current directory in an olddirs file when Neovim starts or the directory is changed with :cd, :lcd, or :tcd. The old directories can be retrieved as a list of strings or through a telescope.nvim picker.

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Motivation
• Documentation
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration

Motivation

I work in a large monorepo and change my working directory depending on what part of the codebase I'm looking at to give my LSP (gopls) a chance and to improve the usefulness of fuzzy finding files. I want to change the current working directory back to a previously used one without having to configure a "project" or "workspace" beforehand. This requirement is not satisfied (as far as I can tell) by existing similar plugins:

• project.nvim
• telescope-project.nvim
• workspaces.nvim
• neovim-session-manager

olddirs.nvim is very lightweight and doesn't provide any niceties (out of the box*) like some of the above plugins, it's literally just :oldfiles for directories.

* I say "out of the box" since some features like the searching or browsing of files inside a previous directory can be implemented by adding actions to the olddirs.nvim Telescope picker.

Documentation

Documentation can be found in doc/olddirs.txt or by running :help olddirs.nvim.

Installation

Using packer.nvim

use('marcuscaisey/olddirs.nvim')

Using vim-plug

Plug 'marcuscaisey/olddirs.nvim'

Using dein

call dein#add('marcuscaisey/olddirs.nvim')

Usage

olddirs.get

The Lua API can be accessed by importing the olddirs module:

local olddirs = require('olddirs')

olddirs.get() returns the directories from the olddirs file in most recently used order.

Telescope

ℹ️ The olddirs.nvim Telescope extension must be loaded before you can use the picker, see the Telescope configuration section.

The old directories can also be accessed using the Telescope picker telescope.extensions.olddirs.picker({opts}). {opts} can include regular Telescope options like layout_config, attach_mappings, and path_display as well as the olddirs.nvim specific option selected_dir_callback:

Key	Type	Description
selected_dir_callback	func({dir})	The function which will be called with the selected directory.

Example mappings

Default settings

local telescope = require('telescope')

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>od', telescope.extensions.olddirs.picker)

Overriding selected_dir_callback

local telescope = require('telescope')
local builtin = require('telescope.builtin')

-- Opens the Telescope find_files picker in the selected directory.
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>ofd', function()
  telescope.extensions.olddirs.picker({
    selected_dir_callback = function(dir)
      builtin.find_files({
        prompt_title = 'Find Files in ' .. dir,
        cwd = dir,
      })
    end,
  })
end)
-- Opens the Telescope live_grep picker in the selected directory.
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>ogd', function()
  telescope.extensions.olddirs.picker({
    selected_dir_callback = function(dir)
      builtin.live_grep({
        prompt_title = 'Live Grep in ' .. dir,
        search_dirs = { dir },
      })
    end,
  })
end)

Providing attach_mappings

local telescope = require('telescope')
local state = require('telescope.actions.state')
local builtin = require('telescope.builtin')

-- <c-p> opens the Telescope find_files picker in the selected directory.
-- <c-g> opens the Telescope live_grep picker in the selected directory.
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>od', function()
  telescope.extensions.olddirs.picker({
    attach_mappings = function(_, map)
      map({ 'i', 'n' }, '<c-p>', function()
        local dir = state.get_selected_entry().value
        builtin.find_files({
          prompt_title = 'Find Files in ' .. dir,
          cwd = dir,
        })
      end)
      map({ 'i', 'n' }, '<c-g>', function()
        local dir = state.get_selected_entry().value
        builtin.live_grep({
          prompt_title = 'Live Grep in ' .. dir,
          search_dirs = { dir },
        })
      end)
      return true
    end,
  })
end)

Configuration

olddirs.nvim

ℹ️ The below example configuration is the default, so if you are happy with this then there's no need to call olddirs.setup.

local olddirs = require('olddirs')
olddirs.setup({
  file = vim.fn.stdpath('data') .. '/olddirs',
  limit = 100,
})

Key	Type	Description
file	string	The file to store the old directories in.
limit	number	The max number old directories to store.

Telescope

To use the olddirs.nvim Telescope picker, you must load the extension:

telescope.load_extension('olddirs')

To configure the picker:

ℹ️ The below example configuration is the default, so if you are happy with this then there's no need to provide it to telescope.setup.

local telescope = require('telescope')
telescope.setup({
  extensions = {
    olddirs = {
      selected_dir_callback = vim.cmd.lcd,
      ...
    },
  },
})

You can also provide any generic picker config in this section. For example:

local telescope = require('telescope')
telescope.setup({
  extensions = {
    olddirs = {
      selected_dir_callback = vim.cmd.cd,
      layout_config = {
        width = 0.6,
        height = 0.9,
      },
      previewer = false,
      path_display = function(_, path)
        return path:gsub('^' .. os.getenv('HOME'), '~')
      end,
    },
  },
})