🛠️ Essential CLI Tools You Should Know - Part 2: zoxide & ouch Link to heading

The command line is powerful, but it can also be tedious. Navigating deep directory structures or handling compressed files can slow down even the best workflows. Fortunately, two modern CLI tools solve these pain points:

  • zoxide → A smarter, faster way to cd
  • ouch → The easiest way to compress & extract files

🌟 zoxide – A Smarter cd Link to heading

Tired of typing long, repetitive paths? zoxide learns your most-used directories and lets you jump to them instantly. No more cd ../../../../some/deep/folder nonsense!

🔹 Why zoxide? Link to heading

✅ Learns your habits – The more you use it, the smarter it gets
✅ Fuzzy matching – Jump to directories without typing the full path
✅ Integrates with all shells – Works with Bash, Zsh, Fish, and more
✅ Super fast – Finds directories instantly

⚡ Quick Start Link to heading

📥 Install: Link to heading

  • Ubuntu/Debian: cargo install zoxide
  • MacOS: brew install zoxide

💡 Common Usage: Link to heading 

# Replace `cd` with `z`
zoxide init bash | source  # Or `zoxide init zsh | source`

# Jump to frequently used directories
z project  # Navigates to ~/Documents/project if used frequently

# List most-used directories
zoxide query

🔥 Why use it? zoxide remembers your habits, making navigation effortless!

🌟 ouch – The Ultimate Compression & Extraction Tool Link to heading

Dealing with compressed files shouldn’t require memorizing dozens of flags. ouch simplifies archiving and extracting into a single, intuitive command.

🔹 Why ouch? Link to heading

✅ Universal syntax – One command for all archive formats
✅ Multi-file compression – Compress multiple files at once
✅ Auto-detects formats – No need to specify .tar.gz, .zip, .7z manually
✅ Works everywhere – Cross-platform and written in Rust

⚡ Quick Start Link to heading

📥 Install: Link to heading

  • Ubuntu/Debian: cargo install ouch
  • MacOS: brew install ouch

💡 Common Usage: Link to heading 

# Extract any compressed file
ouch x archive.zip  # Extracts `archive.zip`, detecting format automatically

# Compress multiple files
ouch c file1.txt file2.txt archive.tar.gz  # Creates `archive.tar.gz`

# List archive contents
ouch l archive.zip

🔥 Why use it? No more juggling tar, gzip, unzip, or 7z—ouch does it all!

✅ Final Thoughts Link to heading

Both zoxide and ouch simplify everyday terminal tasks, making CLI life much easier.

🔥 Pro Tips: Link to heading

🔸 Make zoxide the default cd by adding this to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

alias cd="z"

🔸 Use ouch for quick file transfers – No need to manually extract archives first!

🚀 These tools will save you countless keystrokes and headaches!

📢 Want more? Link to heading

🔗 Check out my full blog here: badran-elshenawy.netlify.app/posts

#CLI #Linux #Productivity #SysAdmin #DevOps #Automation