Introduction

ls works fine but it's pretty basic. Here's what ls -la gives you:

Now compare that to eza -la --icons=always:

Same information - permissions, sizes, dates, filenames. But eza adds icons, human-readable sizes, and colors. Makes it way easier to scan.

What makes eza useful

Icons: Python files get 🐍, JavaScript gets 📜, directories get 📁. Faster to scan than reading extensions.

Git integration: See which files are modified, new, or unchanged right in the listing. No need to run git status separately.

Colors: Different file types get different colors. Executables, symlinks, configs - all visually distinct.

Tree views with .gitignore: Tree output automatically skips __pycache__, node_modules, and other ignored directories.

Git integration

Add --git to see file status in your listing:

eza -la --icons=always --git

The git status column shows:

• M - Modified (not staged)
• N - New (untracked)
• - - Unchanged

For tree views, use --git-ignore to skip all the noise:

eza -lA -T --git-ignore

Shows your actual code structure without __pycache__, node_modules, or other build artifacts.