Skip to content

Filesystem Plugin

Browse and inspect files your game has written — save data, configuration, logs, and any other files in the love.filesystem root. Navigate directories, preview text file contents, and delete files directly from the Feather desktop.

Features

  • Directory browser — lists files and folders with type, size, and last-modified date
  • Navigation — navigate into subdirectories or jump to any path; go up to the parent with one click
  • File preview — read text files directly to the clipboard (up to 50 KB; larger files are truncated with a note)
  • Delete files — remove individual files or empty directories from the desktop
  • Save directory display — shows the absolute OS path to the game's save directory so you know exactly where files live on disk

Installation

The plugin is included with Feather. If using auto.lua, it's registered automatically.

With auto.lua (zero-config)

require("feather.auto")

The plugin starts disabled. Enable it from the Feather desktop or force-enable on startup:

require("feather.auto").setup({
  include = { "filesystem" },
})

Manual registration

local FeatherDebugger = require("feather")
local FeatherPluginManager = require("feather.plugin_manager")
local FilesystemPlugin = require("plugins.filesystem")

local debugger = FeatherDebugger({
  plugins = {
    FeatherPluginManager.createPlugin(FilesystemPlugin, "filesystem", {}),
  },
})

Desktop UI

Toolbar:

Control Description
Up Navigate to the parent directory
Refresh Re-read the current directory
Path input Shows the current directory path; edit it and click Go to jump to any location
Go Navigate to the path typed in the Path input
Item input Type a file or folder name to operate on
Open / Read Directories: navigate into. Files: read content to clipboard
Delete Delete the file or empty directory named in the Item input

Table columns:

Column Description
Name File or directory name (📁 for directories, 📄 for files)
Type Dir or File
Size File size formatted as B / KB / MB (directories show —)
Modified Last-modified timestamp

How it works

Filesystem root

The plugin browses love.filesystem, which mounts two locations:

  • Save directory — the writable directory where your game stores persistent data (love.filesystem.getSaveDirectory()). This is where files written with love.filesystem.write, love.filesystem.newFile, etc. end up.
  • Source directory — the game's source folder or .love archive (read-only). Items from both are visible together at the root.

The absolute OS path of the save directory is shown in the plugin metadata so you can find files on disk.

The path is relative to the love.filesystem root. The empty path ("") represents the root. Navigate by:

  1. Typing a folder name in the Item input and clicking Open / Read
  2. Typing a full path in the Path input and clicking Go
  3. Clicking Up to go to the parent directory

Reading files

Click Open / Read with a filename in the Item input. The file content is sent to your clipboard. Files larger than 50 KB are truncated — a note at the end indicates the total size.

This works best for text formats: JSON, plain text, Lua files, .featherlog files, INI-style configs, etc. Binary files (images, audio) will show garbled content.

Deleting files

love.filesystem.remove can only delete empty directories and files. To delete a directory with contents, delete its children first.

Common use cases

Inspect save data

Navigate to your save directory root and open your save file:

Item: save.json   →   Open / Read

The JSON is copied to clipboard — paste it into any editor for inspection.

Find unexpected files

Sometimes games accumulate temporary or crash files. Browse the root to spot unexpected entries, then delete them.

Verify a fresh install

Clear save state by deleting individual files or the contents of a directory without leaving the desktop.

Debug .featherlog files

Open .featherlog files (newline-delimited JSON) to inspect log entries written in disk mode.