Midnight Commander: file size format

mc

When dealing with large files in MC, I have difficulties counting the digits to get the order of magnitude of the file size (hundreds of MB, or tens of GB, etc.). Sometimes, I use the trick to press insert key, which highlights the file and shows the file size in a nicely formatted way (i.e. 123,456,789), which makes it a thousand times more readable.

I am wondering if/how I could set up MC to show the file size in this format by default, in the size column.

I assume, this has nothing to do with locale

Best Answer

You can adjust the displayed digits with the column size option, see the “Listing mode” section in the manual. The file to edit is ~/.config/mc/panels.ini.

To list the file sizes as K, M or G use a narrow size column using the user_format key:

[New Left Panel]
user_format=half type name mark size:4 space mtime

If you want the size without abbreviation, reserve enough space for it:

[New Right Panel]
user_format=half type name mark size:16 space mtime
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