Terminal Unicode Explorer 🪄
Sauva is a terminal application for searching and browsing Unicode code points. It shows Unicode properties and a glyph preview in a responsive TUI.
- Inspect Unicode properties, encodings, and glyph previews.
- Search, browse, and bookmark code points.
- Analyze strings by code point and grapheme cluster, and compare Unicode normalization forms.
- Customize colors, fonts, and keybindings.
The bundled data is based on Unicode 17.0.0. See Features for details and screenshots.
For detailed usage, configuration, and terminal support, see the full documentation.
If you're using Cargo:
cargo install --locked sauva
Homebrew and pre-built binaries are also available. See Installation for all options.
See Basic Usage for more examples. For all command line options, run sauva --help or see Command Line Options.
Run sauva without arguments, or specify a character or code point:
sauva sauva あ sauva U+2192
Pass a string to inspect its code points and grapheme clusters:
sauva 'Á👩💻'
Use --text - to read literal UTF-8 text from stdin:
printf 'Á👩💻' | sauva --text -
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Move the selection or inspect adjacent code points |
| Enter | Open the selected item or inspect a code point |
| Backspace | Go back in Browse or return from the Inspector to its source list |
| Esc | Close the current view; quit from the Inspector or Sequence |
| / | Open Search from the Inspector |
| F1 | Open or close contextual help |
| Ctrl-C | Quit from any view |
See Keybindings for all controls.
Customize colors, fonts, and keybindings in the configuration file.
Use -o / --output to print a plain or JSON analysis report, or a quoted JSON or Rust string literal and exit:
sauva -o plain U+00BD
sauva -o json --text 'Á😀'See Non-interactive Usage for formats and examples.
Sauva supports macOS and Linux. Glyph previews are supported in kitty and Ghostty. Text features remain available without glyph images. See Compatibility for details.
Glyph previews use fonts installed on your system. To extend symbol coverage, you can optionally install Noto Sans Symbols 2. See Fonts for more suggestions.
Please review CONTRIBUTING.md before opening an issue or pull request.
Sauva is distributed under the MIT License.
The generated Unicode data is derived from the Unicode Character Database. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES and the Unicode License v3 for details.