newr

“Need to copy the last three images I downloaded—uh, what were the extensions again?”

newr is a command-line file selector that allows you to pick files by modification time, with optional filtering by file type (kind) and flexible selection with count and order controls. Supports glob patterns and MIME-type based filtering for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and archives.

Features

• Select files by modification time with a configurable count and optional oldest-first ordering.
• Filter files by kind (doc, xls, ppt, zip, etc.) based on MIME type.
• Supports glob patterns and multiple input files.
• Quiet mode and empty-result-safe mode.
• Outputs absolute file paths to stdout.

Installation

You can install the latest version using pipx:

pipx install http://github.com/tos-kamiya/newr

Note on Dependencies

This tool uses python-magic to determine file types. python-magic depends on the system libmagic library, so you may need to install libmagic separately depending on your OS. For more details, please refer to the official python-magic page.

Usage

newr [OPTIONS] FILES...

Examples

• Show the newest .pdf file in Downloads:

  newr -n 1 ~/Downloads/*.pdf
  

• Show the 3 oldest .docx files:

  newr -n 3 --reverse ~/Documents/*.docx
  

• Show the newest spreadsheet file (xls kind: .xlsx, .xls, .ods):

  newr -k xls -n 1 ~/Downloads/*
  

• Quiet mode (no log output), allow empty result:

  newr -q -0 -k ppt -n 1 ~/Downloads/*
  

Copy the newest image file in your ~/Pictures folder to the current directory

• Fish shell:

  cp (newr -k image -n 1 ~/Pictures/*) .
  

• Bash:

  cp $(newr -k image -n 1 ~/Pictures/*) .
  

The -k image option selects any file recognized as an image (such as .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, etc.) based on its MIME type. In Bash, use $(...) for command substitution; in Fish, use (...).

Options

• -n N, --number N Select this many files (default: 1).

• -r, --reverse Sort in ascending (oldest-first) order before selecting files.

• -k, --kind KIND Filter files by kind: doc, xls, ppt, zip, image, video, audio, text, etc.

• -q, --quiet Suppress all log output to stderr.

• -0, --allow-empty-result Exit successfully even if no files are found (otherwise, exits with error).

• --version Show version and exit.

Supported Kinds

For other kinds (such as image, audio, video, text), all files whose MIME type starts with the given prefix (before the /) will be matched.

Changelog

v0.4.0: Renamed project to newr and updated CLI/tooling references. v0.3.0: Renamed project to newer and replaced --newest/--oldest with unified --number and --reverse options.

License

MIT License