Commander Features

Commander in Advanced mode with two file panes, dense columns and a built-in command line.

Why Commander stands out

Commander brings the fast dual-pane workflow of classic file managers to macOS, Windows and Linux. It is built for keyboard-first file work, but still keeps the visual tools people expect from a modern desktop app: previews, context menus, drag and drop, native file icons, gallery browsing and persistent sessions.

Normal and Advanced modes

Normal mode gives most people a clean file-management workspace: two panes, folder tabs, comfortable spacing, sortable name, size and date columns, hidden files kept out of sight and the full set of copy, move, view, rename, archive, conversion and cleanup tools.

Advanced mode is denser and more technical. It shows hidden files, adds POSIX permission columns, keeps an always-on command line, and enables power-user tools such as Git status, a system panel, package manager checks, hex viewing and binary inspection.

Panes, navigation and menus

Commander has two independent panes with folder tabs, per-pane history, clickable breadcrumbs, sortable columns and selection controls. Sessions persist between launches, including pane locations, tabs and history.

Native menus cover files, editing, marking, commands, show options, configuration and help. Advanced mode adds a tools menu for system and developer workflows. Context menus use native operating-system integration where it matters. On Windows, normal local files can use the Shell context menu so installed Explorer verbs remain available alongside Commander actions.

View options include list-oriented pane browsing, thumbnail browsing and Gallery view for visual directories where image inspection matters more than file metadata density.

Viewing, preview and plugins

Quick View turns the opposite pane into a live preview that follows the cursor. The standalone Viewer supports text, source code with syntax highlighting, Markdown, tables, images, PDFs, EPUB files, audio and video.

Viewer tools include word wrap, text and hex modes, encoding switches, zoom, rotation, find, previous and next file navigation, plus a dedicated Viewer menu. Plugins discovered at startup can route specialized formats such as CSV, SQLite, archives or disk images to the right viewer or filesystem handler.

Deployable plugin packages are advertised from the current release’s plugin catalog. The Commander page reads the release manifest at runtime, follows the current release path and shows the plugins that are currently available, including version and platform metadata when provided.

Remote, security and cleanup

SFTP panels open remote servers inside a pane and use the system OpenSSH client with key and agent authentication. Copy, move, rename, delete and preview work the same way across local and remote panes.

Remote Connections are stored in the operating-system secret manager. Alongside SFTP panels, Commander can browse S3-compatible object storage such as Amazon S3, MinIO and Google Cloud Storage interoperability endpoints. On Windows, Network Neighborhood opens inside a pane: browse workgroups, computers and shares, then continue through normal UNC paths.

Security tools include encrypted .cmdr containers, passphrase-based decryption and optional keychain or libsecret storage where supported. Smart Clean scans system junk, large files, large directories, duplicates and Git repositories, confirms duplicates by checksum and defaults deletion to the operating-system Trash.