Reveal in Outliner — Documentation

Requires Blender 5.2 or later.

1. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and choose Install from Disk…

3. Select RevealInOutliner-1.0.0.zip. Blender asks for no permission: the add-on reads and writes nothing on disk and never accesses the network.

4. The extension installs and enables itself. There is nothing to set up: Auto Reveal is already on, and the Shift + Period (.) shortcut is ready in the 3D Viewport.

To update later, install the newer zip the same way; it replaces the previous version. Disabling or uninstalling the add-on removes its shortcut, its menu entry and its Outliner options immediately. The add-on adds no data to your scenes: it only opens Outliner rows, as if you had clicked their arrows, so your .blend files open exactly the same without it.

There is nothing to run. As soon as the active object changes, the Outliner opens the way to it.

1. Click an object in the 3D Viewport. It becomes the active object.

2. Right after, every Outliner opens what was hiding its row: each closed collection between the Scene Collection and the object, and the parent object when it is the child of another object.

3. The scroll position does not change. When the row ends up outside the visible part of the list, scroll to it — or hover the Outliner and press Period, Blender's Show Active, to center it.

Auto Reveal follows the active object, whatever changes it outside the Outliner: a click in the viewport, a Shift + D duplicate, a newly added object, a script. Box, circle and lasso selections do not change the active object, so they reveal nothing on their own — use the shortcut, see section 3. Clicking the object that is already active reveals nothing either.

To reveal several objects at once, or to reveal again an object whose collection you folded, use the Reveal in Outliner command.

1. Select the objects in the 3D Viewport, any way you like: clicks, box select, the Select menu.

2. With the mouse over the 3D Viewport, press Shift + Period — or right-click and choose Reveal in Outliner at the bottom of the Object context menu.

3. Every selected object is revealed in every Outliner. Your selection and your active object stay as they are.

When a selection is spread over more than 100 branches, the status bar says how many objects stayed folded: select those objects and run the command again to reveal them. The command is also listed in Edit > Preferences > Keymap, see section 7.

The add-on works with the Outliner's own tree: it opens exactly what Blender's Show Active would open, without moving the view.

Only the branches leading to the object are opened; every other row keeps its state. Objects hidden by the Outliner's filters — object types, the Objects filter, the search field — are not listed, so there is nothing to unfold for them.

The add-on never scrolls or recenters an Outliner, and it never reacts to what you do inside one.

Blender 5.2 has its own Scroll to Active option, in the same Options popover as the add-on, on by default. It is separate from the add-on: when the active object's row is already unfolded but out of view, Blender scrolls the list to center it. Turn it off in an Outliner to keep that Outliner perfectly still.

Off by default. With it on, each reveal leaves only the branches you need open.

As the list gets much shorter, Blender may move the view so that it stays within the list. Folded rows stay folded until you open them again: undo does not bring them back, since the open and closed rows of the Outliner are not part of the undo history.

The two options are in the Options popover of every Outliner — the small arrow at the right of its header — under Reveal in Outliner. They are also in Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, after expanding Reveal in Outliner, together with the shortcut. Each change applies to every Outliner from the next reveal — no restart, no need to reopen the file.

The options are saved with your preferences. The shortcut is a regular Blender keymap entry: it is saved with your preferences too, and also listed in Edit > Preferences > Keymap, under 3D View, as Reveal in Outliner.