FAQ

Creating Directories

Use the "Create File Or Directory" mapping, default a, appending a trailing slash.

e.g. foo/ to create a directory foo

You can create many e.g. foo/bar/baz to create directories foo and bar containing a file baz

Colors And Highlights Look Strange

Your color or highlight plugin may have a specific nvim-tree configuration.

See Color Schemes

Customisations Have Broken After An Update

Please ensure that your customisations all go through the public API, including:

:help nvim-tree-api

:help nvim-tree-mappings for on_attach

:help nvim-tree-events

:help nvim-tree-decorators

Example: nvim-tree.view

Internal API nvim-tree.view will break as it is subject to change without notice, undergoing significant refactoring and rewriting at time of writing: 2025 07

See :help nvim-tree-api.tree for public API for window and buffer related functionality.

Why Do I See Spelling Highlights?

The following highlight groups use the standard Spell* highlight groups when highlighting files:

Clipboard:

NvimTreeCopiedHL    SpellRare
NvimTreeCutHL       SpellBad

Bookmarks:

NvimTreeBookmarkHL  SpellLocal

File Text:

NvimTreeExecFile    SpellCap
NvimTreeImageFile   SpellCap
NvimTreeSpecialFile	SpellCap
NvimTreeSymlink     SpellCap

You can reset the above to pre 2024-01-20 values or others e.g.

vim.cmd([[
    :hi NvimTreeExecFile    gui=bold           guifg=#ffa0a0
    :hi NvimTreeSymlink     gui=bold           guifg=#ffff60
    :hi NvimTreeSpecialFile gui=bold,underline guifg=#ff80ff
    :hi NvimTreeImageFile   gui=bold           guifg=#ff80ff
]])