File Manager

Manage files and folders on disk

Actions15

Overview

This node, named "File Manager," provides a variety of file and folder management operations on the local disk. It supports common filesystem tasks such as copying, moving, renaming, compressing, extracting, reading, writing, appending, deleting files or folders, changing permissions, listing directory contents, checking existence, retrieving metadata, and searching files by pattern.

Typical use cases include automating file organization workflows, backing up data by copying or compressing files, preparing files for further processing by reading or writing content, cleaning up directories by removing files/folders, and managing permissions programmatically.

For example, you could use this node to:

  • Copy a set of files from one folder to another.
  • Compress a folder into a tar.gz archive.
  • Extract an archive into a target directory.
  • Rename or move files as part of a data pipeline.
  • Read file contents for processing in subsequent nodes.
  • Search for files matching a regex pattern within a directory tree.

Properties

Name Meaning
Operation The file operation to perform. Options: Append, Change Permissions, Compress, Copy, Create, Exists, Extract, List, Metadata, Move, Read, Remove, Rename, Search, Write.
Source Path Path of the source file or folder (required for operations like copy, move, rename, compress, extract, remove, create).
Destination Path Target path for copy, move, rename, compress, and extract operations (required for these operations).
Recursive Whether to delete folders recursively (only for Remove operation). Defaults to true.
Target Path Path of the file or folder to operate on (used for read, write, append, list, exists, metadata, chmod operations).
Data Content to write or append to the file (used for Write and Append operations).
Encoding File encoding used when reading, writing, or appending files. Defaults to "utf8".
Mode Unix permission bits (e.g., 644) used for Change Permissions operation.
Base Path Directory to start searching from (used for Search operation).
Pattern Regex pattern to match file paths during search (used for Search operation).

Output

The output JSON structure varies depending on the selected operation:

  • Copy, Move, Rename, Compress, Extract, Remove, Create
    Outputs success status and includes sourcePath and/or destinationPath fields indicating the involved paths.

  • Read
    Outputs the file content under data and the targetPath.

  • Write, Append
    Outputs the targetPath confirming where data was written/appended.

  • Change Permissions (chmod)
    Outputs the targetPath and the applied mode (permission bits).

  • List
    Outputs a list array containing filenames in the target directory and the targetPath.

  • Exists
    Outputs a boolean exists indicating if the target path exists, along with the targetPath.

  • Metadata
    Outputs file metadata including size, mtime (modification time), atime (access time), isDirectory (boolean), isFile (boolean), and the targetPath.

  • Search
    Outputs paths array with all matched file paths, plus the basePath and pattern used.

If an error occurs and "Continue On Fail" is enabled, the output will include an error field describing the issue.

No binary data output is produced by this node; it operates on file system paths and textual/buffered content.

Dependencies

  • Requires access to the local filesystem where n8n is running.
  • Uses Node.js built-in modules: fs (filesystem), path, child_process (for spawning tar commands), and zlib (for gzip decompression).
  • For compress and extract operations, the system must have the tar command-line utility available.
  • No external API keys or credentials are needed.

Troubleshooting

  • Common Issues:

    • Permission errors when accessing or modifying files/folders due to insufficient OS-level permissions.
    • Missing tar utility on the host system causing compress/extract operations to fail.
    • Invalid paths or non-existent source files/folders leading to errors.
    • Incorrect regex patterns in search operation causing no matches or runtime errors.
    • Trying to remove non-empty directories without recursive option enabled.

  • Error Messages:

    • "Unknown operation": Indicates an unsupported operation was selected.
    • "tar exited with code X": Compression or extraction failed; check that tar is installed and accessible.
    • Filesystem errors like ENOENT (file not found), EACCES (permission denied), or EPERM (operation not permitted) indicate issues with path validity or permissions.

  • Resolutions:

    • Ensure n8n has appropriate filesystem permissions.
    • Install tar on the host machine for compression/extraction.
    • Verify all input paths exist and are correct.
    • Use valid regex syntax for search patterns.
    • Enable recursive deletion when removing directories with contents.

Links and References

Discussion