Yazi wrapping %s in quotes

[matejdro]

What system are you running Yazi on?

Linux X11

What terminal are you running Yazi in?

kitty 0.49.2

ya env output

Yazi
    Version: 26.9.1 (Arch Linux 2026-09-04)
    Debug  : false
    Triple : x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (linux-x86_64)
    Rustc  : 1.98.1 (48a229ce 2026-09-01)
    Backtrace: None

Ya
    Version: 26.9.1 (Arch Linux 2026-09-04)
    Debug  : false
    Triple : x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (linux-x86_64)
    Rustc  : 1.98.1 (48a229ce 2026-09-01)

Config
    Init             : /home/matej/.config/yazi/init.lua (942 chars)
    Yazi             : /home/matej/.config/yazi/yazi.toml (1646 chars)
    Keymap           : /home/matej/.config/yazi/keymap.toml (2532 chars)
    Theme            : /home/matej/.config/yazi/theme.toml (39 chars)
    VFS              : /home/matej/.config/yazi/vfs.toml (No such file or directory (os error 2))
    Package          : /home/matej/.config/yazi/package.toml (844 chars)
    Dark/light flavor: ArcSwapAny("dark") / ArcSwapAny("light")

Emulator
    TERM                : Some("xterm-kitty")
    TERM_PROGRAM        : None
    TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION: None
    Brand.from_env      : Some(Kitty)
    Emulator.probe      : Emulator { brand: Kitty, version: ArcSwapAny("kitty(0.49.2)"), csi_u: Some(0), kgp: true, kgp_shm: true, sixel: false, background: Some([65021, 63222, 58339]), color_scheme: Some(true), csi_16t: (8, 17), force_16t: false, osc_5522: true, cursor_blink: false, cursor_shape: Some(1), mux: None, probe: Probe { id: Id(0), completed: false }, started: false }

Adapter
    Drivers.matches: Kgp
    TERM.dimension : Dimension { cols: 159, rows: 82, width: 1272, height: 1394 }

Desktop
    XDG_SESSION_TYPE           : Some("wayland")
    WAYLAND_DISPLAY            : Some("wayland-1")
    DISPLAY                    : Some(":0")
    NIRI_SOCKET                : None
    SWAYSOCK                   : None
    HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE: Some("0aa6745f705f2c4b0a5004eb019ef76e5bbdb426_1793892983_1937630534")
    WAYFIRE_SOCKET             : None

SSH
    shared.in_ssh_connection: false

WSL
    WSL: false

Variables
    SHELL              : Some("/bin/zsh")
    EDITOR             : Some("code -w")
    VISUAL             : None
    YAZI_FILE_ONE      : None
    YAZI_CONFIG_HOME   : None
    YAZI_ZOXIDE_OPTS   : None
    SSH_AUTH_SOCK      : Some("/run/user/1000/ssh-agent.socket")
    FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS   : Some("--preview \"if [ -d {} ]; then eza --tree --color=always {} | head -200; else bat -n --color=always --line-range :500 {}; fi\"")
    FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND: Some("fd --hidden --strip-cwd-prefix --exclude .git")

Text Opener
    default     : Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(25), run: "echo \"%s\"> ~/Downloads/test.txt", block: false, orphan: true, desc: "code", for: All, spread: true }))
    block-create: Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(26), run: "code -w \"%s\"", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "code (block)", for: All, spread: true }))
    block-rename: Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(26), run: "code -w \"%s\"", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "code (block)", for: All, spread: true }))

Multiplexers
    tmux version       : 3.8
    tmux build flags   : enable-sixel=Supported
    ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME: None
    Zellij version     : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Dependencies
    file          : 5.48
    ueberzugpp    : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    ffmpeg/ffprobe: 9.0.2 / 9.0.2
    pdftoppm      : 26.10.0
    magick        : 7.1.2-35
    fzf           : 0.74.5
    fd/fdfind     : 10.5.0 / No such file or directory (os error 2)
    rg            : 15.2.0
    chafa         : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    zoxide        : 0.9.8
    7zz/7z        : No such file or directory (os error 2) / 26.05
    resvg         : 0.49.0
    jq            : 1.8.2

Clipboard
    wl-copy/paste: 2.3.0 / 2.3.0
    xclip        : No such file or directory (os error 2)
    xsel         : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Routine
    `file -bL --mime-type`: text/plain

Describe the question

Not sure when did that started happening, but I have noticed that %s seems to be wrapped in single quotes. I can test this by creating a dummy opener that just logs the input into a file

[opener]
edit = [
 	{ run = "echo \"%s\"> ~/log.txt",    orphan = true, desc = "test"        }, 
]

Will produce the following output:

'/home/user/file.txt'

Is this an expected behavior? Some programs do not expect quotes and fail to open since they treat the quotes as part of the file. Can this be changed?

Anything else?

No response

Checklist

• I have read all the documentation
• I have searched the existing discussions/issues

[kova1max]

Yes, this is expected: Yazi already shell-quotes every path it substitutes for %s, so you should not wrap it in quotes yourself.

When a path contains anything outside a small safe set (letters, digits and -_=/,.+), for example a space, Yazi substitutes it as a single-quoted shell word like '/home/user/my file.txt'. Paths made only of safe characters are inserted as-is. Your opener puts that already-quoted word inside another pair of double quotes, and inside "..." single quotes are literal characters, so the shell passes them through to echo and to whatever program you open.

Drop the surrounding quotes and let Yazi's quoting do the work:

[opener]
edit = [
  { run = "echo %s > ~/log.txt", orphan = true, desc = "test" },
]

The same goes for your real openers, e.g. code -w %s instead of code -w "%s". This is also how the default config writes them ($EDITOR %s, mpv %s). With multiple selected files %s expands to several separately quoted words, and %s1, %s2 etc. give you one file each, all quoted the same way.

Source, if you want it: yazi-fs/src/splatter.rs (cue() escapes each substituted path) and escape_os_bytes in yazi-shared/src/shell/unix.rs, checked at v26.9.1, plus the opener section of the yazi.toml docs.

[matejdro]

Thanks for your answer!