38.2 Navigation in the Dired Buffer

All the usual Emacs cursor motion commands are available in Dired buffers. The keys C-n and C-p are redefined to put the cursor at the beginning of the file name on the line, rather than at the beginning of the line.

For extra convenience, <SPC> and n in Dired are equivalent to C-n. p is equivalent to C-p. (Moving by lines is so common in Dired that it deserves to be easy to type.) <DEL> (move up and unflag) is often useful simply for moving up.

j (dired-goto-file) moves point to the line that describes a specified file or directory.

Some additional navigation commands are available when the Dired buffer includes several directories. See section Moving Over Subdirectories.