mc.01.gg · GNU Midnight Commander 4.1.X-MP

About the project

Small, fast, still maintained

Version 4.1.40-MP (2026). Advanced Midnight Commander is a maintained, console-only continuation of the classic mc 4.1.x branch: small, fast, predictable and still built for the terminal.

The project keeps the parts that made the 4.1.x series pleasant to use and avoids the size and dependency growth of the mainline tree. It is a separate branch with its own program names and configuration directory, so it can be installed next to mainline mc. Linux, BSD systems and Haiku are supported; the build needs only make and a C compiler, with no autoconf, GTK, GLib or X11.

Why not mainline mc?

Mainline Midnight Commander is now around version 4.8.x. It has accumulated a lot of code, questionable structural changes and dependencies that make a console-only build awkward. The 4.1.x code base is compact, well structured and easy to extend, which is why this branch continues it instead of maintaining a growing patch queue.

What is in 4.1.40-MP?

This release completes the UTF-8 work, restores the character-conversion paths in the viewer and editor, adds shell and SFTP virtual file systems, modernises the build and fixes a long list of memory, resize and menu bugs. The full release notes are below; the classic 2004 project text and changelog are preserved in the Legacy section at the bottom of the page.

Highlights

What makes 4.1.40-MP different

UTF-8 everywhere

Panels, dialogs, the command line, viewer and editor work in UTF-8. CJK, emoji and combining marks are measured by display width, not byte count.

Legacy codepages, modern terminal

Read and edit CP1251, CP866, KOI8-R and KOI8-U files while the terminal stays UTF-8. Ctrl-T selects the source codepage in the viewer and editor.

Shell and SFTP VFS

Open sh:// and sftp:// paths from the panel. Transfers use the system ssh and sftp clients; no libssh2, GLib or other SSH libraries.

Unified command line

A command typed on the panel command line follows you into Ctrl-O, and the shell line comes back for editing, completion and history.

Modern build

config.mk and plain Makefiles replace autoconf. Linux, the BSDs and Haiku build without GTK, GLib or X11; bundled S-Lang is patched for UTF-8.

Archive VFS refresh

ZIP was rewritten in sh/awk; 7-Zip and ACE were added; RAR and LHA/LZH work with current tools; .tar.xz streams instead of unpacking.

Memory and resize fixes

Leaks in mount lists, syntax parsing, histories and dialogs were caught. Viewer/editor resizing, menu widths and scrollbar colours were repaired.

Install side by side

Programs are named mc-MP, mcedit-MP, mcview-MP and so on, and user files live in ~/.config/mc-MP. Mainline mc is not disturbed.

Download

Current release: 4.1.40-MP

mc-MP.v4.1.40.tar.gz

sourcegz1.9 M · 5 Nov 2026 · 0 downloads

Download

mc-MP.v4.1.40.tar.xz

sourcexz1.3 M · 5 Nov 2026 · 0 downloads

Download

These are the original 4.1.40-MP release archives. The git tree also contains post-release fixes (including the remote-F4 crash fix); refreshed archives will be published with the next release.

Build from source

make
make install

Edit config.mk first if you need a different prefix or optional libraries. GNU make and BSD make are supported. Full notes: README.40.

Release notes

What changed in 4.1.40-MP

Full release notes

Release 4.1.40-MP (2026)

This round of work focused on modernising the build, completing UTF-8 support, restoring the character-conversion paths in the viewer and editor, fixing the file-system extensions, and cleaning up long-standing memory bugs.

General

Renamed programs so an installation no longer collides with mainline mc: mc-MP, mcedit-MP, mcview-MP, mcmfmt-MP, mcserv-MP and cons.saver-MP.
New install layout: $PREFIX/bin/mc-MP, $PREFIX/libexec/mc-MP, $PREFIX/share/mc-MP; user files live in ~/.config/mc-MP.
Build system reworked: autoconf and generated Makefiles are gone. The build is driven by config.mk and plain Makefiles, with readable config.h, tracked header dependencies and bundled S-Lang 1.4.8.
UTF-8 support completed for the terminal, panels, dialogs, command line, viewer and editor. CJK, emoji and combining marks use display width instead of byte count.
Legacy codepages can be read and edited while the terminal stays UTF-8. Ctrl-T opens the source-codepage menu in the viewer and editor; Auto, UTF-8, CP1251, CP866, KOI8-R and KOI8-U are supported.
UTF-8-aware saving in the editor: files are converted internally, saved back in their original encoding by default, and the Save As dialog offers line-ending and recoding options.
Unified command line and subshell input: commands typed on the panel command line follow you into Ctrl-O, and the shell line comes back for editing, completion and history.
Shell VFS (sh://) and SFTP VFS (sftp://) without libssh2 or GLib. Transfers use the system ssh/sftp clients and a persistent ControlMaster connection.
Fixes for command-line cursor positioning, prompt/label widths, clock refreshes, menu widths, terminal resizing, panel scrollbar colours, and several memory leaks and invalid accesses.

Virtual file systems and archives

Shell and SFTP VFS with the Left/Right panel menu dialogs, password-free URLs and reused SSH control connections.
Fixed an F4 crash on remote sh:// or sftp:// files when the type check could not open the file.
ZIP VFS rewritten in sh/awk; added 7-Zip and ACE VFS; updated RAR and LHA/LZH for current tools.
Added streaming .tar.xz/.txz browsing, so the whole archive is not unpacked into a temporary file.
Extfs listings with paths above the archive root no longer fail with "Inconsistent extfs archive".

Editor, documentation and install

Imported syntax highlighting definitions from mc 4.8 for JSON, YAML, TOML, CMake, Meson, Go, Rust, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, TypeScript, Dockerfile, Debian files, VHDL/Verilog, GLSL, CUDA/OpenCL, Protobuf, Markdown and others, adapted for the 4.1 syntax engine.
Regenerated mc.pot, merged and completed the Russian catalogues, and rebuilt the man pages and built-in help.
make && make install is the normal install; DESTDIR and BSD make are supported. On FreeBSD the base clang and bmake are enough.
Known issues: the new sh:///sftp:// modules need wider testing; FTP/RPM/cpio/tar VFS still need review; some process-teardown allocations remain visible to Valgrind.

The complete historical release notes are kept in the Legacy section.

Gallery

Classic 4.1.x screenshots

Legacy content

The original 2004 project text, the pre-4.1.40 changelog and the old release archive are kept here for history. The download counters are preserved from the original page.

Old project text (2004)

Midnight Commander 4.1.X-MP

The goal of this project is creating a stable, well-working, usefull console-only version of well-known Midnight Commander, without bugs and garbage, like tk, xv and gnome. I'm bored waiting for bugfixes, and A'rpi's ESP team stops their work in this direction too, so I did it. I'm fixing all (found) bugs, reported by my friends, and made some really pleasent new features, like real-time clock, or filegroups colorizing.

Why is it an alternate version of mc, instead applying patches to main mc project?

The original mc is now about v4.6.x, with more and more bugs, "monster from the console" grows more and more, and now it has some very bad structural changes, tons of garbage code, and finally - there is no possibilities to compile it without some X parts, like Glib.

When I use linux - i want to use fast and powerfull console file manager, and I like mc 4.1.x series much better: it has well-designed structures, easy to add new features.

Btw. I back-ported some of new usefull things appeared in 4.5.x and 4.6.x, make some fixes, catch some memory leaks, and so on... - README gave you more information about it.

Sincenerely yours, Oleg "Olegarch" Konovalov Oleg

Old changelog — 4.1.40-pre9 (2004)

Current changelog:

mc-MP 4.1.40-pre9

ADDED: EXTFS patches from Hatred:
- New EXTFS behaviour: strings from Miguel's "url" format: "rpm:cpio:/path/ar.rpm/ar.cpio/path2" converted to strings in "#proski/" format, at form: "/path/ar.rpm#rpm/ar.cpio#cpio/path2"
ADDED: EXTFS mkdir/rmdir/unlink features for archives, EXPERIMENTAL!
ADDED: Some new keybindings:
- CTRL+` - "toggle bookmark" in editor
- ALT+INS - "Paste from clipboard" in editor (as Sh-INS)
- Ctrl+LEFT, Ctrl+RIGHT - fast horizontal movement (10 chars) in Viewer
ADDED: "External Scripting" function in Editor. Thanx to Gergely Szasz for original idea.
ADDED: "CD-recording" into PowerPack. Thanx to Bart Friederichs for original realisation. But it's incomplete, and WET yet!
ADDED: "Double frames" feature and option for panels, EXPERIMENTAL! Possibly will work only with PC/KOI 8bit character mappings
ADDED: "Show mountpoint info" feature and option for panels:
- Shows [ FreeSize / TotalSize ] on panel's bottom for current mountpoint
ADDED: "Panel Scrollbar" option for panels: shows scrollbar for panels
ADDED: "Fullscreen mode" for Viewer, which binded on F11 fkey:
- very useful for ebook-reading process on PDAs and notebooks with small screen: statusline and keybar dissapoints reader person because useful text smaller on two lines.
CHANGED: "Layout" dialog:
- Added options - "Double frames", "Panel Scrollbar", "Show mountpoint info"
- Added "l&Ynx-like; motion" option, moved from "Configuration"
- Re-layed some elemenths of "Layout" dialog
CHANGED: panel menu for mountpoints rewritten from scratch:
- now we has possibility to show: mountpoint name, size of FS at mountpoint, free space, mounted device name, full path on mountpoint (from panel's history) and HotKeys. Work will be continued. FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL!
- "mc_cd_mountpoint_and_dir" setup option: allow to CD into last used directory of selected MountPoint. INI option, off by default
CHANGED: "Enter" key behaviour for Viewer: now scroll text by page, nor line. Very useful for ebook-reading process on PDAs and notebooks, where is absent PgUP and PgDN keys: BkSPC and Enter are changing them.
FIXED: Some security fixes applied, some memleaks catched
FIXED: 2GB limit in directory size counters not has a place anymore
FIXED: With native SLANG compilation problem connected with placement of nice rotating dash.
FIXED: Single search-string buffer for all search/replace ops
FIXED: Duplicates in all historys unnecessary and must be off!
FIXED: Menubar now has HotKeys highlights
FIXED: Listbox now has HotKeys (when exist) showing with highlights.
REMOVED: (temporaly, I hope) all ".po" files, except "ru.po". Maintainer waits for your suggestions about your locales.