Panels and navigation

Moving the cursor

With the mouse: a single click puts the cursor on a row (without selecting it), and a double click works like Enter.

Opening folders and files

• Enter on a folder opens it.

• Enter on the /.. row, or Backspace, goes to the parent folder. The cursor lands on the folder you just left (you can turn this off in Settings).

• Enter on a file:

  • an archive (.zip, .tar.gz, .7z and others) opens in the panel like a folder — Archives;

  • a file on disk opens in the app the system uses for that file type (e.g. a PDF in Preview or Acrobat);

  • when the system has no app for the file, and also for a file on a server or in an archive, the built-in preview opens.

The path field

Click the field above the list, type a path and press Enter.

• On a local disk, ~ works as the home folder (~/Documents).

• On a server, type the server path (/var/www).

• In an archive, the field shows name.zip!/folder; you can type a path in the same form.

• If the folder can't be opened, the panel stays where it was, and the text you typed stays in the field so you can fix it.

The arrow button next to the field opens the list of recently typed paths. Choosing an entry puts it in the field; the panel goes there when you press Enter. Paths you reached with the keyboard or the mouse don't go on this list.

Tip: Save places you use often as favorite paths — you open them with F2.

Drives and volumes

The buttons on the left side of the bar above the panels open a drive in the active panel.

• macOS: the first button is the startup disk (/, e.g. Macintosh HD), followed by the volumes in /Volumes: external disks, USB drives, disk images and mounted network shares.

• Windows: all drive letters (C:, D:…), including network drives.

The list refreshes every few seconds, so a USB drive you plug in shows up on its own. The button tooltip shows the name, path and free space.

Quick places

The buttons on the right side of the bar show icons only; the tooltip gives the name. They act on the active panel:

Going to a drive, the home folder or a favorite closes an archive open in the panel (saving the changes) and disconnects from the server if the panel was connected to one.

Sorting and columns

• Click a column header to sort by that column; click it again to reverse the order.

• In ascending order, folders come before files. In descending order, the whole order is reversed, so files are at the top.

• A missing date counts as the oldest date.

• To change a column's width, drag the right edge of its header; to change how the window is split between the panels, drag the border between them. The app remembers both.

• You can set each panel's default sort in Settings.

The Size column shows bytes (334561 B); in Settings you can choose kilobytes or megabytes instead. Dates look like YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM. Permissions use the rwxr-xr-x notation; on Windows they are derived from the file attributes (e.g. rw-rw-rw-, or r--r--r-- for a read-only file).

Hidden files

View → Show Hidden Files turns hidden files on and off in both panels. Hidden files are files whose names start with a dot and, on Windows, also files with the “hidden” attribute.

Warning: This setting only affects what you see. Copying, moving and deleting a folder always includes the hidden files inside it, and search and statistics see them.

Refreshing

• Cmd+R / Ctrl+R or View → Refresh refreshes both panels. The cursor stays on the same file, and the selection is cleared.

• By default, the app reads a folder again each time you enter it; you can turn this off separately for disks and for servers in Settings — returning to a folder you've visited is then instant, but it may show a slightly outdated state.

• After its own operations (copying, deleting, saving in the editor), the app refreshes the panels by itself.

Warning: A panel doesn't notice changes made in another app on its own — refresh it with the shortcut.

Panel content: files, servers or terminals

New after 1.0.0: this feature is not in version 1.0.0.

Instead of files, a panel can show the list of saved FTP/SFTP servers or SSH/Telnet terminals.

The shortcuts and the menu change the active panel. The icon button in front of the path field opens the same menu for its own panel.

In the list:

• the columns are Name, Protocol, Address and User, and the list's name appears in place of the path field;

• Enter or a double click on a server connects in this panel and shows the server's files; on a terminal, it opens a system terminal window and the panel stays on the list;

• F4 edits, F7 adds and F8 deletes an entry (after asking);

• the context menu has Connect or Open Terminal, Edit..., Delete..., New Connection... or New Terminal..., and Show Files;

• an empty list shows the hint “No saved servers — press F7 to add one”.

File operations (viewing, copying, searching, compressing…) don't work in a panel that shows a list. If the other panel shows a list, F5, F6, Compare Directories, Search changes → Copy and syncing with the other panel show the warning “The other panel does not show files”, with the shortcut that switches back to files.

The panel's folder, cursor and selection wait, hidden, behind the list. Going to a drive, the home folder or a favorite path, or connecting from the FTP/SFTP menu, brings the files back. The app always starts with files in both panels.

Disk space

New after 1.0.0: this feature is not in version 1.0.0.

Below the info bar there's a row with a usage bar and text such as “Used 375.0 GB of 500.0 GB (75%) · 125.0 GB free” for the disk that holds the panel's current folder.

• From 90% usage, the bar is red.

• “Used” is the capacity minus the space available to you — the same way Finder and File Explorer count it.

• The row is shown for the computer's disks, mounted network shares and Windows network paths (\\server\share). It isn't shown for FTP/SFTP servers or archives.

• The value refreshes each time you enter a folder, after copying, and every 10 seconds.

Messages in the window title

Short confirmations (“Created folder: New”, “Connected to SFTP: …”) appear in the window title and disappear after a few seconds. Errors that need your attention appear in a separate window.