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Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Desktop App

McFly

A smarter Ctrl-R for finding old terminal commands.

Visit McFly4.5

  • Rating

    4.5 / 5

  • Pricing

    Free

  • Difficulty

    Intermediate

  • Works on

    macOS, Linux

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What is McFly?

McFly replaces your shell's Ctrl-R history search with a search that looks at your working directory and recent commands, ranking results with a small neural network. Its README lists support for Bash, Zsh and Fish, and says it keeps your normal history file so you can stop using it whenever you like.

Third-party open-source projects. We are not affiliated with their authors; repositories are provided as-is by their maintainers. Review each project's license, code and security before installing. See our Disclaimer.

Pros: what McFly does well

  • Finds the right command faster than plain history
  • Works with Bash, Zsh and Fish
  • Your normal history file stays intact

Cons: where it falls short

  • Terminal only
  • Its README says it is looking for more maintainers

Who McFly is for

Anyone who keeps retyping long commands.

Who can skip it

People who rarely use the command line.

McFly alternatives

Not sold on McFly? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Personal Productivity resources

Atuin

Focus: sync. Shares shell history and terminal with McFly. Adds Windows. Rated 4.7 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Linux
4.7Visit

htop

Focus: process viewer and system monitor. Shares terminal and command line with McFly. Rated 4.7 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Linux
4.7Visit

Tabby

Focus: ssh and serial. Shares terminal and command line with McFly. Adds Windows. Rated 4.6 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.6Visit

gping

Focus: ping and network. Shares terminal and command line with McFly. Adds Windows. Same 4.5 rating.

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

Free alternatives to McFly

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

btop

Focus: system monitor and processes. Shares terminal and open source with McFly. Adds Offline. Rated 4.7 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Linux
4.7Visit

bottom

Focus: system monitor, processes and performance. Shares terminal and open source with McFly. Adds Windows. Same 4.5 rating.

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

Glances

Focus: system monitor, dashboard and performance. Shares command line and open source with McFly. Adds Windows. Same 4.5 rating.

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

zoxide

Focus: navigation and shell. Shares terminal and command line with McFly. Adds Windows. Rated 4.7 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Linux
4.7Visit

dua-cli

Focus: disk usage and storage cleanup. Shares terminal and command line with McFly. Adds Windows. Rated 4.6 (McFly: 4.5).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.6Visit
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