con621

A fast, lightweight console (TUI) client for e621 built in Rust.

Note: e621 hosts adult/NSFW content. con621 defaults to the safe rating filter, but the full catalog is accessible. Use responsibly and in line with e621's terms.

Features

• Search posts with full e621 tag syntax (tag1 tag2, -tag, ~tag)
• Sort by score, favorites, newest, or oldest
• Filter by rating (safe / questionable / explicit / all)
• Inline image preview in graphics-capable terminals, with a half-block text fallback elsewhere (toggle with i)
• Animated GIF and video preview played as frames in the terminal, with sound for clips that have an audio track
• Vim-style navigation (j/k/h/l)
• View detailed post info (tags, score, artists, sources, description)
• Open posts in your browser
• Download files to your Downloads folder
• Pagination support

Installation

From crates.io (when i fix it)

cargo install con621

From source

git clone https://github.com/gitlab-stack/con621
cd con621
cargo build --release

The binary outputs to target/release/con621 (~2MB).

Requirements

• Rust 1.56+ (2021 edition) to build
• ffmpeg — required only for video preview (.webm/.mp4). It is auto-downloaded on first use via ffmpeg-sidecar if not already on your system. Still images and GIFs work without it.
• A terminal with graphics support (Kitty, iTerm2, WezTerm, or Sixel) gives true inline images; any other terminal falls back to half-block rendering.
• Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS — no ncurses dependency.

Usage

con621

(or ./target/release/con621 if built from source)

Keybindings

Search Screen

Key	Action
Tab	Cycle between fields
Enter	Execute search
Esc	Quit

Results Screen

Key	Action
j / k / ↑ / ↓	Navigate posts
Enter	View post details
i	Toggle image/video preview
o	Open in browser
d	Download file
n / p	Next / previous page
s	Open settings
q / Esc	Back to search

Detail Screen

Key	Action
j / k	Scroll up / down
h / l / ← / →	Previous / next post
i	Toggle image/video preview
o	Open in browser
d	Download file
s	Open settings
q / Esc	Back to results

Settings Screen

Key	Action
k / + / ↑	Increase playback FPS
j / - / ↓	Decrease playback FPS
Enter	Save
Esc	Back

Global

Key	Action
?	Toggle help
Ctrl+C	Force quit

Configuration

Settings are stored as JSON in your platform config directory, e.g. ~/.config/con621/config.json on Linux:

{
  "fps": 15
}

• fps — target frames-per-second for video/animation playback (1–60). Editable in the in-app Settings screen (s).

License

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.