Previews

See inside a file without opening it. Strata previews text, code, images, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, audio, and video in a panel beside your files.

Show the preview panel

In Columns, the default view, the panel is already on. It holds a slot right of your columns, so previews never move them. In Icons and List it starts hidden: click the view button in the header bar (your current view's icon, tooltip Appearance) and click Preview panel. Clicking it again hides the panel in any view.

Drag the divider to resize the panel; the width lasts until you close the window. When the window gets too narrow, the preview hides and media pauses. Widen the window and it returns.

Take a quick look

Click a supported file and its preview opens; Single-click file previews is on by default. In Columns, arrowing onto a file opens its preview too. Space toggles the preview: press it to close the preview, and again to reopen it for the focused file.

Menu. Right-click a file and choose Quick preview.
Follow. With the preview open, arrow to another file and the preview follows.
Step inside. In List or Columns, press Right to move focus into the preview. Ctrl+C then copies selected text, not files.

Space on a folder opens the folder instead.

Peek into a folder

Turn on Settings → General → BROWSING → Folder peeking; it is off by default. Rest the pointer on a folder in Icons or List for half a second, and a popover lists up to eight of its entries. Columns never peeks.

Play media and read documents

Audio, video, and GIF previews open paused. To start them at once, turn on Settings → General → BROWSING → Autoplay media previews.

Keys	Action
Ctrl+Alt+Space	Play or pause
Ctrl+Alt+Left, Ctrl+Alt+Right	Seek 5 seconds
Ctrl+Alt+Up, Ctrl+Alt+Down	Volume up or down
Ctrl+Alt+M	Mute
Ctrl+Alt+<, Ctrl+Alt+>	Previous or next file of the same type

Audio shows cover art, tags, a live spectrum, and a waveform you click to seek. On a video, press Enter to continue in your default player; mpv, VLC, Celluloid, and MPlayer pick up where the preview stopped.

Local Markdown, HTML, RTF, CSV, and TSV files open rendered. Click View source in the header for the raw text, and View rendered to go back. To start in source, turn off Render documents by default in the same BROWSING group. Local XLS, XLSX, and ODS files show their first sheet as a sortable table, and local DOCX files render too.

To search a preview:

Move focus into the preview and press Ctrl+F, or click Find in preview.
Type your text. Case is ignored.
Press Enter for the next match, Shift+Enter for the previous.
Press Escape to close find. The match stays selected for Ctrl+C.

Find skips rendered tables, PDFs, and media. With focus in the file list, Ctrl+F filters filenames instead.

Why previews are sandboxed

A file can be crafted to attack the program that reads it. So Strata decodes images, RAW photos, PDFs, XLS, XLSX, and ODS workbooks, DOCX, and media in a helper process inside Bubblewrap. The helper sees only that one file, has no network, and is killed when you move on. Plain text is read directly, up to the first 1 MiB.

If Bubblewrap is missing, these previews show Preview unavailable; Strata never decodes them outside the sandbox. Install your distribution's bubblewrap package.

Full detail: Document previews, Preview sandbox, and Keyboard navigation.