bibtui 0.9.7

A quiet, powerful home for your references.

bibtui

A quiet, powerful home for your references.

Quick start

# Run without installing
uvx --prerelease=allow bibtui myrefs.bib

# Or install permanently
uv tool install --prerelease=allow bibtui

Why --prerelease=allow? bibtui depends on bibtexparser v2, which is still in beta on PyPI. This flag tells uv to use it. Once bibtexparser publishes a stable v2 release this flag will no longer be needed.

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Screenshots

Light theme	Dark — Catppuccin Mocha

Nord — keywords modal

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bibtui is a beautiful, keyboard-driven terminal app for researchers who live in the terminal. Browse and edit your .bib file, fetch open-access PDFs with a single keystroke, track what you've read, and never leave the command line — no database, no sync daemon, no account required.

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Why bibtui?

	bibtui	JabRef	Zotero
Runs in the terminal	✅	❌	❌
No database / sync daemon	✅	✅	❌
Git-friendly plain .bib	✅	✅	❌
Works over SSH	✅	❌	❌
Full Textual theming	✅	❌	❌
Pure Python, installs in seconds	✅	❌	❌

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Features

• Browse & search — instant search across title, author, keywords, and cite key
• Import by DOI — paste a DOI and metadata is fetched automatically
• Fetch PDFs automatically — tries arXiv → Unpaywall (free, open-access) → direct URL
• Add existing PDFs — pick a file from your Downloads folder with a live filter
• Edit entries — field-by-field form or raw BibTeX editor (toggle with v)
• Read states & priorities — track what you've read and what matters most
• Star ratings — rate entries 1–5
• Keywords editor — manage tags inline
• JabRef-compatible — file links use JabRef conventions; open the same .bib in both tools
• Git-friendly — it's a plain text file (.bib); commit, diff, and collaborate normally
• Full Textual theme support — including automatic detection of the omarchy themes
• Works anywhere uv does — SSH, HPC clusters, a colleague's laptop

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Installation

Recommended — uv (fastest)

uv tool install bibtui

pip

pip install bibtui

Try without installing

uvx bibtui references.bib

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Usage

bibtui MyCollection.bib

On first launch bibtui shows a short onboarding wizard that pre-fills sensible defaults for your PDF directory, Downloads folder, and Unpaywall email (no registration required — the email is only used for rate-limiting).

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PDF workflow

f tries three sources in order:

1. arXiv — for entries with a 10.48550/arXiv.* DOI or an arxiv.org URL
2. Unpaywall — free open-access lookup by DOI (set your email in Settings; no account needed)
3. Direct URL — if the entry's url field points directly to a PDF

PDFs are saved to your configured base directory and the entry's file field is updated automatically in JabRef format.

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Philosophy

• Your .bib file is the source of truth
• No hidden database
• No setup, point and shoot possible
• No lock-in
• No accounts
• keyboard and mouse support
• nice looking
• focused featurset. For cleanup use bibtex-tidy or work directly on the bib file

Development

git clone https://github.com/tgoelles/bib_tui
cd bib_tui
uv sync
uv run bibtui tests/bib_examples/MyCollection.bib

Run the tests:

uv run pytest -m "not network"

Live-reload during development:

uv run textual run --dev src/bibtui/main.py -- tests/bib_examples/MyCollection.bib

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Related tools

• JabRef — GUI reference manager, same .bib format
• cobib — another terminal BibTeX manager
• bibman — minimal TUI reference manager

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FAQ

Does this modify my .bib formatting? Yes. but we also write a backup file

Can I use it alongside JabRef? Yes. File links follow JabRef conventions.

License

MIT © Thomas Gölles