[MacOS] search that works with weird UTF-8-MAC encoding of special characters (e.g. umlauts) #3622
Description
yazi --debug output
Yazi
Version: 26.1.22 (Homebrew 2026-01-22)
Debug : false
Triple : aarch64-apple-darwin (macos-aarch64)
Rustc : 1.92.0 (ded5c06c 2025-12-08)
Ya
Version: 26.1.22 (Homebrew 2026-01-22)
Config
Init : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/init.lua (1543 chars)
Yazi : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/yazi.toml (7419 chars)
Keymap : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/keymap.toml (21572 chars)
Theme : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/theme.toml (76 chars)
VFS : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/vfs.toml (No such file or directory (os error 2))
Package : /Users/phil/.config/yazi/package.toml (529 chars)
Dark/light flavor: "tokyonight-night" / ""
Emulator
TERM : Some("alacritty")
TERM_PROGRAM : Some("tmux")
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION: Some("3.6a")
Brand.from_env : Some(WezTerm)
Emulator.detect : Emulator { kind: Left(WezTerm), version: "WezTerm 20240203-110809-5046fc22", light: false, csi_16t: (9, 17), force_16t: false }
Adapter
Adapter.matches : Iip
Dimension.available: Dimension { rows: 37, columns: 131, width: 1179, height: 629 }
Desktop
XDG_SESSION_TYPE : None
WAYLAND_DISPLAY : None
DISPLAY : None
SWAYSOCK : None
HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE: None
WAYFIRE_SOCKET : None
SSH
shared.in_ssh_connection: false
WSL
WSL: false
Variables
SHELL : Some("/bin/zsh")
EDITOR : Some("/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim")
VISUAL : None
YAZI_FILE_ONE : None
YAZI_CONFIG_HOME : None
YAZI_ZOXIDE_OPTS : None
FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS : None
FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND: None
Text Opener
default : Some(OpenerRule { run: "${EDITOR:-vi} %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: None, spread: true })
block-create: Some(OpenerRule { run: "${EDITOR:-vi} %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: None, spread: true })
block-rename: Some(OpenerRule { run: "${EDITOR:-vi} %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: None, spread: true })
Multiplexers
TMUX : true
tmux version : tmux 3.6a
tmux build flags : enable-sixel=Supported
ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME: None
Zellij version : No such file or directory (os error 2)
Dependencies
file : 5.41
ueberzugpp : No such file or directory (os error 2)
ffmpeg/ffprobe: 8.0.1 / 8.0.1
pdftoppm : 26.01.0
magick : 7.1.2-13
fzf : 0.67.0
fd/fdfind : 10.3.0 / No such file or directory (os error 2)
rg : 15.1.0
chafa : No such file or directory (os error 2)
zoxide : 0.9.8
7zz/7z : 25.01 / No such file or directory (os error 2)
resvg : No such file or directory (os error 2)
jq : 1.8.1
Clipboard
wl-copy/paste: No such file or directory (os error 2) / No such file or directory (os error 2)
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
See https://yazi-rs.github.io/docs/plugins/overview#debugging on how to enable logging or debug runtime errors.
Please describe the problem you're trying to solve
I'm new to mac os and still finding out weird quriks. One is, that all my files got synced with weird encoding.
Apparently this is called decomposed normal form.
An ä gets 'a' plslus a unicode char for diacritical dots
ä -> a + U+0308
Let's say we are looking for "mäc-ümlaut", fd does not find it with "mäc".
What does work is find . | iconv -f UTF-8-MAC -t UTF-8 | grep mäc
I made a very limited poc as a lua plugin. Of course it is still possible to write files in regular unicode, so this would need another search pattern.
I'm not sure how other file managers handle this, I never noticed this issue.
https://github.com/fipski/mac-umlaut.yazi
There is a discussion for fd, without a really good conclusion.
sharkdp/fd#1535
Some insights from apple
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qa1235/_index.html
schei? encoding!
Would you be willing to contribute this feature?
- Yes, I'll give it a shot
Describe the solution you'd like
In conclusion I don't know how to properly solve this. A file name could be either way encoded, search for both strings?
It would probably be best to replace all umlauts in the input with regexes.
Additional context
No response
Checklist
- I have searched the existing issues/discussions
- The latest nightly build doesn't already have this feature