Compare the Top File Managers as of November 2025

What are File Managers?

File managers, also known as file browsers or file explorers, are software applications that enable a user to browse, search, organize, and manage the files and folders on their computer or device. Compare and read user reviews of the best File Managers currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Commander One

    Commander One

    Electronic Team, Inc.

    Commander One is the all-in-one file dual-panel file management application for Mac. It fully supports Mac M1 and M2 silicon and comes with a great interface that’s easy to maneuver and productivity-driven. The app is packed with features designed to increase the speed and ease of working with files. The ability to customize hotkeys, select specific files, show hidden files and view the entire work history and favorite files makes it amazing for those working with a lot of content. Moreover, Commander One also comes with an operation queue section, where users can see all of their files being processed, full support for archives, and a built-in viewer for text files of all kinds. Users can also choose to encrypt their files, with the super secure encryption feature that is built in and easy to set up. Power users can use the terminal emulator which also comes with the application to set up specific tasks and have full control over their workflow.
    Leader badge
    Starting Price: $29.99
  • 2
    Readdle Documents
    Documents is about action. Download videos. Read ePUBs. Open ZIP files. Watch movies. Edit PDFs. Documents gives you the superpowers to do what you want with your files. Add an extra layer of protection with the world’s fastest VPN. Use it to change your virtual location and enjoy music, video, and the TV shows you love. And yes, once enabled, VPN works perfectly across all your apps. Documents is now available on M1, becoming the first super app for desktop. Do what you want with your files, without jumping between dozens of apps. Manage all your files, watch videos, browse the web, edit PDFs, and more. Use a powerful built-in browser to quickly download mp3, books, videos, and literally anything from the Web. Private browsing is also there to respect your privacy. Think of it as an AirDrop on steroids. Now you can instantly send your photos, documents, or entire folders to a nearby iPhone or iPad. And no worries: the file structure in your folder will remain the same.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 3
    Total Commander

    Total Commander

    Ghisler Software

    Total Commander, version 10.52, is a shareware file manager for Windows® 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11, and Windows® 3.1. Two file windows side by side. Multiple language and Unicode support. Enhanced search function. Compare files (now with editor) / synchronize directories. Quick View panel with image and video display. ZIP, 7ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE archive handling + plugins. Built-in FTP client with FTPS (encrypted FTP) and HTTP proxy support. Multi-rename tool. Tabbed interface, regular expressions, history+favorites buttons. Thumbnails view custom columns. Compare editor, cursor in lister, separate trees, logging, enhanced overwrite dialog, etc. Unicode names almost everywhere, long names (>259 characters), a password manager for FTP and plugins, synchronize empty dirs, 64-bit context menu, quick file filter (Ctrl+S). USB port connection via special direct transfer cable, partial branch view (Ctrl+Shift+B), and many improvements to FTP synchronizing.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 4
    Directory Opus

    Directory Opus

    GPSoftware

    Directory Opus is a complete replacement for Explorer, with far more power and functionality than any other file manager available today. Single or dual pane file display and folder trees. Tabbed interface let you keep multiple folders open and switch quickly between them. Unique Explorer Replacement mode provides a full replacement for Windows Explorer. Quickly filter, sort, group, and search your folders. Color-code your files, and assign status icons, star ratings, tags, and descriptions. View images, documents, and more. Image marking lets you sort your photos quickly and easily. Batch renaming including easy-to-use keyboard macros. View and edit file metadata. Support for FTP and archive formats like Zip, 7Zip, and RAR. Built-in tools including synchronize and duplicate file finder. Calculate folder sizes and print or export folder listings. Queue multiple file copies for improved performance. Fully configurable user interface, colors, fonts, toolbars, keyboard hotkeys, etc.
    Starting Price: $31.65 one-time payment
  • 5
    ForkLift

    ForkLift

    BinaryNights

    The most advanced dual pane file manager and file transfer client for macOS. Connect to SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Rackspace CloudFiles, SMB, AFP, and NFS remote volumes and easily manage your files quickly across networks. You can connect to multiple servers at a time and even copy between them with drag and drop. Sits on your menu bar and lets you mount a saved remote connection as a disk, upload files to a remote server from Finder by drag and drop, or run a saved Synclet even if ForkLift is not running. Compare local or remote source and target folders identifying matching, modified, new, and deleted files. Synchronize them one or two-way with a single mouseclick, or save it as a favorite. If you are a web developer, you'll love this feature. The preview panel shows you useful information about the selected file. It lets you playback audio and video files, and inspect images, PDFs, and other popular document types.
    Starting Price: $19.95 one-time payment
  • 6
    Filestash

    Filestash

    Filestash

    Filestash is a self-hosted web application that acts as a frontend to your data storage. It supports a wide range of storage providers, including S3, SFTP, FTP, FTPS, Backblaze B2, Minio, WebDAV, Git, LDAP, MySQL, CardDAV, CalDAV, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Filestash provides a user-friendly interface for managing your files and folders, including features such as: File and folder browsing File uploading and downloading File and folder creation, moving, and deletion File and folder sharing File editing Image preview Music player Network drive support Filestash is also highly customizable, with a variety of settings and options that you can adjust to meet your specific needs. For example, you can choose which features to enable or disable, set user permissions, and customize the look and feel of the application.
    Starting Price: $150 per month
  • 7
    Transmit
    So, you have files you need to manage on servers. Maybe you’re a developer. Maybe you’re a system administrator. Maybe you’re a contractor or freelancer. But you need to connect to a thing, and upload, download, or tweak the files on that thing. Transmit’s big strength is its clean interface — our famous “dual-pane” view is way faster than the Finder. But Transmit also has tons of very nice features like File Sync, which can mirror remote and local (or, now, local and local!) files in one click. Transmit also takes great care to let you organize your Servers for fast access. And with Panic Sync, you can sync them to all of your computers. Never type a server address again.
    Starting Price: $45 one-time payment
  • Previous
  • You're on page 1
  • Next