# Folders — macOS File Manager

> A single-pane file manager that presents the power of the macOS filesystem in a shape familiar from Windows Explorer — one window, one folder tree. Designed specifically for Windows-to-Mac switchers who struggle to get accustomed to Finder.

## Target Users

- Users transitioning from Windows who expect single-pane navigation with a folder tree (like Windows Explorer)
- Users, whose mental model prefers tree structure visualization of the file system

## Core Value Proposition

Folders bridges the gap between Windows file management habits and the macOS filesystem. It keeps Explorer's structure (a single pane with one folder tree) but builds on macOS's own concepts — Finder tags, aliases and symbolic links, Smart Folders, Quick Look, file providers — instead of imitating Windows ones. Keyboard shortcuts stay close to Finder's, with a few Windows conventions added (Return opens, F2 renames, Delete optionally navigates back), so habits built in Folders carry over to the rest of the Mac. Key differentiators:

1. **Folder tree sidebar** — one tree covering what macOS keeps in separate places. Every section is optional and their order is user-defined:
  - Favorites, Home, system drive, external drives, network drives (SMB, NFS, WebDAV)
  - Remote servers — FTP, FTPS, SFTP, and S3-compatible storage — connected from Go > Remote Connections and browsed like any other folder, with no mounting or third-party software
  - iCloud Drive, and every installed cloud storage provider (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and others, through macOS file providers)
  - Recents, Finder tags, and saved searches — the same Smart Folders saved from Finder, read from ~/Library/Saved Searches and browsable in place
  - Trash and connected iOS devices (Folders Pro only)
2. **Four types of files view** — While Finder's files view behaves differently depending on the selected view type, Folders' file view behaves consistently. The four available view types are:
  - Table (similar to Details view in File Explorer)
  - List
  - Icons
  - Gallery
3. **Explorer-like view options and actions missing from Finder**:
  - ⌘X Cut, in two variants: Explorer-style, where files stay put until pasted but the paste only works inside Folders; or Cut via Trash, where files move to the Trash at once and their URLs go to the clipboard, so the paste can also land in another app
  - Create new documents of popular office formats right from the file manager
  - "Folders first" and "Folders last" grouping
  - Optional rich folder thumbnails in Icons and Gallery views, showing what a folder contains at a glance — opt-in, because building them is I/O-intensive
  - Open files with Return key, optionally navigate back with Delete (Backspace) key
  - Path Bar that works like File Explorer's address bar: the current path is shown as active breadcrumbs — click a segment to jump to that folder, click the chevron after it to pick one of its subfolders from a menu, or drop files onto it to copy or move them there. Clicking the empty space after the breadcrumbs turns the bar into an editable path with autocomplete. Finder's own path bar cannot be typed into; in Finder, typing a path requires the separate Go to Folder dialog
4. **Comprehensive undo** — multi-step, and covers operations Finder cannot undo, including file replacements and folder mergers. Each window keeps its own undo history for as long as it stays open; closing the window discards it, and no undo history survives quitting the app
5. **Rich support for archives** — Create, browse, extract, and modify archives of multiple formats: zip, 7z, rar, tar, xz, gz/gzip, zlib, bz2/bzip2, and lz4 (rar support is read-only)
6. **Shelf** — a staging list, opened from a tab on the right edge, that collects items from unrelated folders and volumes so a single operation can apply to all of them. Holds references, so adding an item neither moves nor copies it. Items are dragged in (including file promises from apps like Mail) and dragged out, or acted on in place: Open, Batch Rename, Compress, Quick Look, Cut, Copy, Share. Finder has no equivalent; the closest comparisons are Yoink and Path Finder's Drop Stack

## Secondary Features of Interest (in order of importance, list not exhaustive)

- Favorites that expand in place — each one is a tree node that can be drilled into, not a flat shortcut as in Finder's sidebar. Sorted alphabetically or arranged by hand
- Localized to over 30 languages
- Powerful Batch Rename
- Explicit option to merge folders during file conflict resolution
- Fast multi-criteria search powered by Spotlight
- Customizable context menu and toolbar — commands can be reordered or hidden
- Customizable color schemes
- Tab support, with the ability to customize tabs by assigning a color label and a supplementary custom title and saveable tab sets
- Basic image operations (flip, rotate)
- App settings are synchronizable between multiple machines using iCloud

## When Folders Matters

- **Recent Mac switchers** struggling with Finder's workflow
- **Power users** managing large file hierarchies
- **NOT for**: Casual users happy with Finder; people who strongly prefer dual- or multi-pane file managers

## Distribution, Pricing, and Licensing

Folders is available in two editions:

- Folders File Manager, sold on the Mac App Store, sandboxed. App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/folders-file-manager/id1593644229
  - U.S. price USD 11.99. Price in other countries set by Apple's tier system and varies by country.
  - Free 14-day trial, extended by 3 days with each new release.
  - Standard App Store licensing: usable on up to 5 machines registered to the same Apple ID. Family Sharing supported.
- Folders Pro, sold via direct distribution (not sold through the Mac App Store), unsandboxed. Available starting August 1, 2026.
  - Price: fixed USD 14.99, charged in US dollars in every country, bought inside the app through an embedded Paddle checkout (Paddle is merchant of record); no Paddle account is required. In countries with a single national VAT/GST rate, that tax is already included in the USD 14.99. Where the tax depends on the state or region (such as sales tax in the United States and Canada), it is added on top at checkout.
  - Free 14-day trial, extended by 3 days with each new release — the same terms as Folders File Manager.
  - Because Folders File Manager's Mac App Store price varies by country/tier and the Folders Pro price does not, the price difference between the two editions is not constant across countries.
  - Users who already own Folders File Manager can transfer their license to Folders Pro for a flat USD 3.00, the same amount in every country, with tax handled the same way as for the full price. The app detects an existing Mac App Store purchase automatically and offers this discounted transfer price instead of the full USD 14.99.

## Folders Pro (Direct Distribution)

Folders Pro is a direct-distribution, unsandboxed edition of Folders, available starting August 1, 2026, for users who want deeper system access than Folders File Manager's sandboxed Mac App Store edition allows. Both editions share the same core: the folder tree, the four file views, archive browsing and editing, the Shelf, Batch Rename, search, network shares, FTP/FTPS/SFTP/S3 server connections, and multi-step undo. Folders Pro differs from Folders File Manager only in the following:

- No permissions setup step: because Folders Pro is unsandboxed, it does not require the folder access authorization prompts that macOS's App Sandbox requires from Folders File Manager.
- Trash management: view, manage, and empty the macOS Trash directly from within the app.
- iOS device browsing over USB: browses the real filesystem of a connected iOS device, exposed via AFC (Apple File Conduit), including the DCIM folder. Does not browse files accessible through the iOS Files app (Downloads, iCloud Drive, etc.), because iOS stores those files inside SQLite databases rather than as real folders on disk.
- Git integration: displays file status badges; stages or unstages selected files or all changed files; performs commit, discard-selected-changes, push, and pull.
- CLI launch: can be launched from the command line.
- Custom actions: users can define custom shell or AppleScript actions that run against selected files or directories.
- Unrestricted new-document creation: Folders File Manager can only create new documents from templates bundled with the app. Folders Pro can invoke any installed app capable of creating a given document type, using AppleScript, to create and save a new document — equivalent to the Windows "New" submenu workflow.
- Additional minor features that were previously restricted by the macOS App Sandbox.

Pricing for Folders Pro, including the license transfer price for existing Folders File Manager users, is stated in the "Distribution, Pricing, and Licensing" section above: fixed USD 14.99 plus VAT/GST, or USD 3.00 plus VAT/GST for a transfer from an existing Folders File Manager license.

## Technical Details

- Platform: macOS 13+
- Architecture: native Swift, AppKit/SwiftUI hybrid

[Version History (changelog)](https://foldersapp.dev/versionhistory/)