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open.fish

Fish shell function that opens files with the default application

TLDR

Open a file with its default application
$ open [file]
Open a URL in the default browser
$ open [https://example.com]
Open a directory in the file manager
$ open [directory]
Open the current directory
$ open .
Open multiple files
$ open [file1] [file2] [file3]

SYNOPSIS

open [file...]

DESCRIPTION

open is a built-in function shipped with the Fish shell that opens files, directories, and URLs with the user's default application, regardless of the host operating system. It is defined in share/fish/functions/open.fish in the Fish installation.On macOS and Haiku the function delegates to the native open binary. On other Unix-like systems it dispatches to xdg-open, gnome-open, or kde-open, whichever is present. On systems lacking any of these helpers the function prints an error explaining that no opener is available.Because it is implemented as a Fish function, it only exists inside interactive Fish sessions and is not available to scripts run with sh, bash or zsh.

PARAMETERS

FILE

One or more files, directories, or URLs to open.

CAVEATS

Only defined inside the Fish shell; not an executable on $PATH. Behavior on Linux depends on the installed desktop helpers — on a minimal server without xdg-open the function will fail. On macOS, Fish prefers the system open(1) and bypasses any user-defined function named open.

HISTORY

The open function has shipped with Fish since its early releases as a portable alternative to macOS's open(1) and Linux's xdg-open. It is updated along with Fish itself.

SEE ALSO

open(1), xdg-open(1), fish(1)