I’ve Tested Three Finder Alternatives for MacOS, and This One Is the Best.
There’s much more you can customize on a Mac than you might imagine, and that includes the file management software you use to browse the system’s contents. Take Finder, for example: there are numerous alternatives offering additional features and different interface options.
I tested three of the most well-known and highly rated Finder alternatives to figure out what I was missing. Each has its advantages, but the third one on this list is so good that I might just switch to it permanently for all my file and folder management needs on macOS.
Commander One
As soon as you launch Commander One , you’ll notice that it has a more sophisticated interface than Finder, which may or may not suit you, depending on your attitude toward minimalism. Its layout is based on a two-pane interface, and you can customize it in a variety of ways—even down to the fonts and colors used, if you’re looking for something unique.
The program begins to demonstrate its potential when you move from simply viewing files and folders to actually interacting with them. You can rename files when copying and moving them; get a dedicated file operation queue; and perform complex system searches using regular expressions.
I love the quick toggles for viewing hidden files and previewing files without additional apps, and connecting to network storage and cloud services is super easy. There’s even a built-in Terminal that you can use. It’s also convenient that the keyboard shortcuts displayed in the interface are customizable if you don’t like the default ones.
There’s certainly a lot going on here, and while the interface takes a bit of getting used to, that’s to be expected—and it’s easy to figure out quickly. The professional version of the program includes additional features, including themes and integration with FTP, Google Drive, and Dropbox—all available for a one-time fee of $29.99.
QSpace Pro
QSpace Pro is the best Finder alternative I’ve tested in terms of available interface customizations: you can customize it down to the last detail, although the default appearance isn’t much different from Finder. You can simultaneously display up to four different system folders, arranged in various ways, and switching between these layouts is very easy.
After using QSpace Pro for a short time, I definitely felt more efficient on my Mac, and when you have a lot of tasks on the system, it really helps. Copying, moving, searching, deleting, tagging, and previewing are all intuitive and simple, and you can easily hide parts of the interface if you know you won’t need them.
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The sheer number of settings available in QSpace Pro demonstrates just how much can be accomplished with this tool: keyboard shortcuts, context menus, new file creation, batch operations, folder syncing, iCloud links, and application launchers are all customizable, and these are just a few of the available options. It’s like Finder, but with far more features.
QSpace Pro isn’t free: its features require a one-time fee of $27.99 through the Mac App Store (or $29.99 via direct download), although at the time of writing, these prices have been reduced to $12.99 and $13.99, respectively. You can try the software for free for 30 days before purchasing it on the QSpace Pro website.
Finding the way
Path Finder is one of the oldest Finder alternatives, and I think it’s my go-to app for good. It’s simply chock-full of features and capabilities to experiment with, and if you spend a little time customizing it to your liking, it will significantly speed up all your file operations.
There are several different layout options to choose from, including a two-pane layout that makes moving and copying easy, and I really like the “layering” approach, which lets you combine multiple files and folders in a temporary panel first before doing anything with them.
Batch file operations are supported, as are synced folders, allowing you to merge and compare two folders on your system as needed. Bookmarks and preset tabs are also widely used, allowing you to quickly navigate to the most frequently used sections of your Mac—something not always easy to do in Finder.
The visual display of the disk space used by files and folders is very convenient, as is the integration with Dropbox (my primary cloud storage option). Admittedly, it’s not the most visually appealing of the software packages listed here, but that’s not necessarily the most important thing in a file manager, and it adds all the features I didn’t realize I was missing from Finder.
Path Finder costs $29.99 per year, but a 30-day trial is available.