A faster Finder
Power up your files and folders with this app that’s perfect for demanding users
Commander One Free (Pro Pack £25.99)
FROM mac.eltima.com
FEATURES Dual panel view, expanded file and folder info and management, powerful cloud integration
The macOS Finder is the face of your Mac, the means by which you launch applications, manage files and folders, and you generally just use it every day.
Since Apple gives you the same Finder regardless of whether you’re a beginner or a power user, it is tailored more towards being friendly and usable than providing a million options. For those that do want to go deeper, Commander One is an app that both taps into the hidden features of the Finder and adds many more of its own, to give you a remarkable level of access to your stuff.
Its most noticeable feature is a dual panel view of your files and folders where you can view two different directories at once in different view modes, with extensive information than would normally require several clicks to get visible on the main screen. Common commands like view, edit, copy or delete are mapped to function keys for easy access, and there’s even a switch for viewing hidden files with a single click. The two panels can also contain as many tabs as you like.
You can compress groups of files easily and in all major formats with variable compression levels, whereas the Finder allows you only the ZIP format, with no options. There’s a very powerful search function that can even see inside compressed files, and any actions can be assigned to customisable hotkeys. The Pro Pack adds some cool features like direct access to a number of cloud services including Dropbox, Google Drive and Backblaze, the ability to directly mount iOS and Android devices as volumes and a built-in Terminal emulator.
While you can find many of these tools in other third-party apps and sometimes by digging into macOS’s hidden features, Commander One brings them all together into one superpowered file manager that puts them all at your fingertips. The Finder is still running of course, but this app unlocks the full power of macOS while adding quite a few features of its own that Apple simply doesn’t give you. For anyone dealing with files, folders and cloud storage that needs quick and easy access to every aspect of their data, it’s worth checking out.