Colour your files and folders in the VS Code Explorer. Right-click → Mark — pick a colour, a tag and a note. Marks are stored globally, so they follow you into every project.
Why
- Find the files you actually work in, in a tree full of everything else.
- No config files in your repo, nothing committed by accident.
- Works on a multi-selection, on folders, and on remote / WSL / container workspaces.
- No runtime dependencies, no network access, no telemetry.
Install
From the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X) search for File Marks Explorer, or:
ext install T0ks1k24.file-marks-explorer
Also on Open VSX for VSCodium, Cursor and Gitpod.
Use it
Right-click a file or folder in the Explorer (or an editor tab) → Mark:
| Quick Preset… | colour + tag + note in one click — TODO, Important, Broken… |
| Colour… | 10 colours, themeable |
| Tag / Badge… | 1–2 characters or an emoji next to the name |
| Description… | note shown on hover |
| Remove | clear the mark |
| List All Marks | jump to any marked file |
Everything is also in the Command Palette under File Marks:.
The eight presets that ship with it — 📌 TODO, ⭐ Important, 🚧 In progress, ✅ Done, 💥 Broken,
🚫 Do not touch, ❓ Question, 🗄 Archive — are only a starting point. Replace them with your own
workflow through fileMarks.presets.
Keybindings
One press. They act on the file open in the editor, and on the Explorer selection while the Explorer has focus.
Ctrl+Alt+1 … Ctrl+Alt+5 |
apply preset 1–5 — colour, tag and note in one go |
Ctrl+Alt+0 |
remove the mark |
Ctrl+Alt+M |
the preset picker — everything else is in there |
Ctrl+Alt+C |
colour… |
Ctrl+Alt+L |
list all marks |
Press the same shortcut again and the mark comes off, so Ctrl+Alt+1 is a toggle.
The shortcuts are bound to key positions ([Digit1], [KeyM]), not to the letters printed on
them, so they keep working on a Ukrainian, Russian, Greek or any other non-Latin layout — where a
plain alt+m binding does nothing at all, because no key on that layout produces an m.
Bind your own
fileMarks.apply takes arguments, so any mark can go on a key of your own in keybindings.json:
{
"key": "ctrl+alt+r",
"command": "fileMarks.apply",
"args": { "color": "red", "badge": "💥", "description": "Broken" }
}
| Argument | Accepts |
|---|---|
color |
red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, pink, grey, contrast, any theme colour id, or null to clear it |
badge |
1–2 characters, or null |
description |
any text, or null |
preset |
a position in fileMarks.presets (1) or its label ("TODO") |
toggle |
false to keep writing the mark instead of taking it off on the second press |
target |
"explorer" marks the Explorer selection instead of the file in the editor |
With no args at all the key opens the preset picker.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
fileMarks.presets |
8 presets | the ready-made marks in Quick Preset… — replace them with your own |
fileMarks.badgeSuggestions |
[] |
the tags offered in the picker; empty keeps the built-in emoji |
fileMarks.propagateToParents |
false |
colour a folder when something inside it is marked |
fileMarks.showTagInTooltip |
true |
put the tag in front of the note in the hover text |
fileMarks.priorityOverGit |
true |
keep mark colours in front of git status colours |
fileMarks.explorerKeybindings |
true |
let the shortcuts mark the Explorer selection |
Change the colours to your own:
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
"fileMarks.red": "#ff0055"
}
Available ids: fileMarks.red, .orange, .yellow, .green, .teal, .blue, .purple,
.pink, .grey, .white.
Good to know
A tag is 1–2 characters — one emoji counts as one, so 📌, 🇺🇦 and 🚧✅ all fit. Longer
input is cut down to the first two: work becomes wo.
That is not our choice. VS Code gives the spot next to a file name exactly two characters and rejects anything longer — the badge is not truncated for you, the whole decoration is thrown away and the file loses its colour as well. Use the hover note for anything that needs words.
Git colours. VS Code keeps the colour of whichever extension registered last, so File Marks re-registers itself after Git has started. If a colour still gets overridden, run File Marks: Give Marks Priority Over Git Colours. On a folder containing changed files, Git replaces the badge with a grey dot; the mark colour stays. Problem markers (errors, warnings) always win — turn them off if marks must be unconditionally visible:
"git.decorations.enabled": false,
"problems.decorations.enabled": false
The Explorer selection behind a keybinding. VS Code exposes no API for what is selected in the
Explorer. The shortcuts read it through the built-in Copy Path command and put the clipboard back
immediately afterwards — set fileMarks.explorerKeybindings to false and they only ever mark the
file open in the editor, leaving the clipboard alone. The context menu never needs any of this.
Renames made inside VS Code carry the mark along, folders included. Changes made outside the editor do not — use File Marks: Remove Marks of Missing Files to clean up.
Backup. Export / Import Marks moves everything to another machine. Marks live in one JSON file in the extension's global storage; nothing is written into your projects.
Contributing
Bugs and ideas are welcome in the issues.
The extension is plain JavaScript with no build step: clone it, press F5, and a second VS Code
window opens with it loaded.
npm install
npm run check # syntax check
npm run package # build file-marks-explorer.vsix
Pushing a commit to main with a new version in package.json tags it and publishes the
release automatically — see .github/workflows/release.yml.