Dired is a visual directory editor, a computer program for editing file system directories. Dired runs on any Emacs platform. Its commands are generally more modal than most Emacs commands because Dired is a specialized major mode on its own. Dired can perform all expected operations; in operation and use it is akin to an orthodox file manager like Midnight Commander.
Dired was invented circa 1974 at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) as a stand-alone program by Stan Kugell. It was quickly incorporated into Emacs, re-implemented in other operating systems, and became the basis for modern window-oriented file directory displays.
Several Emacs Lisp scripts have been developed to extend Dired functionalities in Emacs. In combination with Tramp it is able to access remote file systems for editing files by means of SSH, FTP, telnet and many other protocols, as well as the capability of accessing as another user for editing files with restricted permissions (such as administrator access) in the same session. There are also functionalities that make it possible to rename multiple files via search and replace or apply regular expressions for marking (selecting) multiple files.