Shell Wrapper

The y shell wrapper is a function that launches Yazi and, on exit, changes your shell's working directory to wherever Yazi last visited. This is the single most impactful productivity feature of Yazi.

How it works

Yazi writes the last-visited directory path to --cwd-file when it exits. The shell wrapper reads that file and runs cd to that path.

Bash / Zsh

Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc

function y() {
  local tmp="$(mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXX")"
  yazi "$@" --cwd-file="$tmp"
  if cwd="$(cat -- "$tmp")" && [ -n "$cwd" ] && [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]; then
    cd -- "$cwd"
  fi
  rm -f -- "$tmp"
}

Fish

Add to ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

~/.config/fish/config.fish

function y
  set tmp (mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXX")
  yazi $argv --cwd-file=$tmp
  if set cwd (cat -- $tmp); and [ -n "$cwd" ]; and [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]
    cd -- $cwd
  end
  rm -f -- $tmp
end

Nushell

Add to ~/.config/nushell/config.nu:

~/.config/nushell/config.nu

def --env y [...args] {
  let tmp = (mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXX")
  yazi ...$args --cwd-file=$tmp
  let cwd = (open $tmp)
  if $cwd != "" and $cwd != $env.PWD {
    cd $cwd
  }
  rm -f $tmp
}

PowerShell

Add to $PROFILE (typically ~\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1):

$PROFILE

function y {
  $tmp = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
  yazi @args --cwd-file $tmp
  $cwd = Get-Content $tmp
  if ($cwd -and $cwd -ne (Get-Location).Path) {
    Set-Location $cwd
  }
  Remove-Item $tmp
}

Windows CMD

Save as y.cmd and place in a directory in your %PATH%:

y.cmd

@echo off
set tmp=%TEMP%\yazi-cwd.txt
yazi %* --cwd-file="%tmp%"
set /p cwd=<"%tmp%"
if defined cwd if not "%cwd%"=="%CD%" cd /d "%cwd%"
del "%tmp%" 2>nul

Verification

After adding the wrapper, restart your shell and run:

y
# navigate around, press q
pwd  # should show the last directory you visited in Yazi

tip

Use y instead of yazi for normal use. Only use the yazi binary directly when you want to skip the directory-tracking behavior.