Comparison of file managers

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable file managers.

General information

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%; width: auto;"

! rowspan="2" | Name

! rowspan="2" | Developer

! colspan="2" data-sort-type="date" | Initial release

! rowspan="2" | Platform

! colspan="2" data-sort-type="date" | Latest release

! rowspan="2" | License

! rowspan="2" | Cost

! Version

! Date

! Version

! Date

| | Altap Salamander

| Altap

| 1997-08-15

| Windows

! | Commander One

| Eltima Software

| 2015-08-04

| macOS

! rowspan="5" | Directory Opus

| rowspan="5" | Jonathan Potter GPSoftware

| rowspan="4" | 1

| rowspan="4" | 1990-01-03

| AmigaOS

| 4.16

| 2001-07-04

| rowspan="4"

| AmigaOS

| rowspan="3" | 5.91

| rowspan="3" | 2015-08-30

| rowspan="3"

| AROS

| MorphOS

| 6

| 2001-06-18

| Windows

| 12.27

| 2022-03-21

! | Dired

| Integral part of Emacs. Part of the GNU project.

| ~1976

! rowspan="5" | Dolphin

| rowspan="5" | KDE

| rowspan="5" | 0.5

| rowspan="5" | 2006-06-07

| BSD

| rowspan="5" |

| rowspan="5"

| Linux

| macOS

| Unix

| Windows

! rowspan="3" | DOS Navigator

| rowspan="3" | Ritlabs

| rowspan="3" | 0.90

| rowspan="3" | 1991

| DOS

| rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3"

| OS/2

| Windows

! | DOS Shell

| Microsoft / IBM

| 1988

| DOS

| 1998

| rowspan="3" | Doszip Commander

| rowspan="3" | nidud

| rowspan="3" | 2.53

| rowspan="3" | 2014

| DOS

| v2.66

| 2024

| rowspan="3"

| Win32

| v3.90

| rowspan="2" | 2025

| Win64

| v3.91

! rowspan="5" | Double Commander

| rowspan="5" | Alexander Koblov

| rowspan="5" |

| rowspan="5" | 2007

| BSD

| rowspan="5" |

| rowspan="5"

| Linux

| macOS

| Unix

| Windows

! rowspan="3" | emelFM2

| rowspan="3" | tooar

| rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3" | 2003-09-06

| BSD

| rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3"

| Linux

| Unix

! | Explorer++

| David Ercig

| 2008-01-08

| Windows

| 1.4.0

| 2024-01-28

! | Far Manager

| Eugene Roshal Far Group

| 1996

| Windows (Linux, Mac, BSD via far2l)

| 2026-03-24

! | File Explorer

| Microsoft

| 1995-08-24

| Windows

| 2015-07-29

! | File Manager

| Microsoft Ian Ellison-Taylor

| 1990

| Windows

| 2025-10-28

! | GeoManager

| Berkeley Softworks Breadbox Ensemble

| 1990

| GEOS

| 2009

! | Finder

| Apple Inc.

| 1984-01

| macOS

| 10.10.5

| 2015-08-13

! | ForkLift

| BinaryNights

| 2007-06-01

| macOS

! | gentoo

| Emil Brink

! | GNOME Commander

| GNOME Commander

| 2001-09

! | GNOME Files

| Eazel

| 2001-04-11

! | Konqueror

| KDE

| 2000-10

! | Krusader

| Krusader Krew

| 2000-07-11

! | Midnight Commander

| Miguel de Icaza GNU

| 1994-05

! | muCommander

| Maxence Bernard

| 2002-02-17

| Windows, Linux, macOS

! | Nemo

| Linux Mint

| 1.0.0

| 2012-07

! | nnn

| Arun Prakash Jana

| 2017-04-13

! | Nomad.NET

| Eugene Sichkar

| 2.2.0.537 beta

| 2008-08-14

| 3.2.0.2890

| 2016-06-13

! rowspan="2" | Norton Commander

| rowspan="2" | Peter Norton Computing Symantec corporation

| rowspan="2" |

| rowspan="2" | 1986

| DOS

| 5.51

| 1998-07-01

| rowspan="2"

| Windows

| 2.01

| 1999-02-01

! | Path Finder

| Cocoatech

| 2001-04

| macOS

| 9.1

| 2020-03-24

! | PathMinder

| Albert Nurick Brittain Fraley

| 1984

| DOS

| 4.11

| 1988

! | PCManFM

| Hong Jen Yee

| 2006-01-09

| 1.3.2

| 2021-02-05

! | PC Shell

| Central Point Software

| 1986

! rowspan="3" | ranger

| rowspan="3" | Roman Zimbelmann

| rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3" | 2010-06-09

| BSD

| rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3"

| Linux

| macOS

! | ROX-Filer

| Thomas Leonard et al.

| 2000-03-10

! | Samsung My Files

| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

| 2010

| Android

| 15.2.04.2

| 2025-09-21

! | SpaceFM

| IgnorantGuru

| 0.5.0

| 2012-01-13

| | STDU Explorer

| STDUtility

| 2009-03-23

| Windows

| 1.0.465

| 2012-05-24

! | Tabbles

| Yellow blue soft UAB

| 2009-08-01

| Windows

| 3.1.29

| 2016-08-12

| | Thunar

| Xfce

| 2006-01-22

! rowspan="2" | Total Commander

| rowspan="2" | Christian Ghisler

| 1.0

| 2012-05-18

| Android

| rowspan="2"

| 1.00d

| 1993-09-25

| Windows

! | ViewMAX

| Digital Research / Novell

| 1.0

| 1990

| DR-DOS

| 3.0

| 1993

! | Volkov Commander

| Vsevolod Volkov

| 1992

| DOS

! | WinSCP

| WinSCP

| 2000-09-30

| Windows

! | Worker

| Ralf Hoffmann

| 1.0.0

| 1999-03-06

| Unix

! | Xandros File Manager

| Xandros Corporation

| 4.2

| 2007-07-26

! | Xfe

| Roland Baudin

| 2002

! | Xfile

| Rixstep

| 2003-03-02

| macOS

| 2.1.0.10

| 2010-02-14

! | Xfm

| Simon Marlow Albert Gräf Till Straumann Robert Vogelgesang Juan D. Martin

| 1992

! | xplorer²

| Nikos Bozinis

| 2004-06-10

| Windows

| 5.4.0.2

| 2023-06-14

! rowspan="2" | XTree

| rowspan="2" | Jeffery C. Johnson

| 1985-04-01

| DOS

| 1992

| rowspan="2"

| 1992

| Windows

| 1992

! | XYplorer

| Donald Lessau

| 1997

| Windows

| 20.80.0100

| 2020-02-13

! | Xfm

| | Far Manager

| (far2l)

! | ZTreeWin

|- class="sortbottom"

! style="width:12em;" | File manager

! DOS

! OS/2 & eCS

! Windows

! Mac OS X

! Linux

! BSD

! Unix

! AmigaOS

! OpenVMS

Mac-only file managers

Finder
ForkLift
Path Finder
Commander One

*nix-only file managers

Demos Commander
emelFM2
Gentoo file manager
Konqueror
Krusader
nnn
Nautilus
Nemo
PCMan File Manager
Ranger
ROX-Filer
Thunar
SpaceFM
Worker

Windows-only file managers

Altap Salamander
Directory Opus

! | Dolphin

| Navigational

| GUI

! | Double Commander

| Orthodox

| GUI

! | DOS Navigator

| Orthodox

| Text

! | emelFM2

| Orthodox

| GUI

! | FAR Manager

| Orthodox

| Text

Twin-panel file managers have obligatory connected panels where action in one panel results in reaction in the second. Konqueror supports multiple panels divided horizontally, vertically or both, but these panels do not act as twin panels by default (the user has to mark the panels he wants to act as twin-panels).

Network protocols

Information on what networking protocols the file managers support. Note that many of these protocols might be supported, in part or in whole, by software layers below the file manager, rather than by the file manager itself; for example, the macOS Finder doesn't implement those protocols, and the Windows Explorer doesn't implement most of them, they just make ordinary file system calls to access remote files, and Konqueror either uses ordinary file system calls or KIO slave calls to access remote files. Some functions, such as browsing for servers or shares, might be implemented in the file manager even if most functions are implemented below the file manager.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: auto;"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! SMB/CIFS

! WebDAV

! NFS

! AFP

! FTP

! FISH/SSH

! | Altap Salamander

! | Commander One

File features

Information on what basic file features the file managers support.

{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: auto;"

! style="width:12em" | File Manager

! Undo/redo file operation

! File compression

! File encryption

! Rename busy files

! File preview

! File coloring filter

! File selection filter

! Paste clipboard as file

! File and folder reports

! ACL (Access control list)

! Mass rename

! Run executable files

! | Altap Salamander

| , multiple

! | Commander One

! | Directory Opus

! | Dired

! | Dolphin

! | Double Commander

! | emelFM2

! | FAR Manager

! | File Manager

! | Files (Apple)

! | Files by Google

! | Finder

! | ForkLift

! | GNOME Commander

! | Konqueror

|

|

|

! | GNOME Files (Nautilus)

! | Nemo

| ?

! | Nomad.NET

! | Path Finder

! | PCManFM

|

|

! | ROX-Filer

| colspan="2" | With helper applications

| | STDU Explorer

| | Thunar

| (via plugin)

| | Total Commander

! | Windows Explorer

! | Worker

! | Xandros File Manager

! | Xfe

! | Xfm

! | xplorer²

! | XYplorer

|- class="sortbottom"

! style="width:12em" | File Manager

! Undo/redo file operation

! File compression

! File encryption

! Rename busy files

! File preview

! File coloring filter

! File selection filter

! Paste clipboard as file

! File and folder reports

! ACL (Access control list)

! Mass rename

! Run executable files

Browsing features

{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: auto;"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! Symbolic links

! Slideshows

! Shows combined size of selected directories

! Branch sizes

! Directory compare

! Synchronizer

! Find as you type (Type-ahead find)

! Embedded/integrated terminal

! For directories, size column shows:

! | Altap Salamander

|

| (for remote folders)

|

| DIR

! | Commander One

|

| , in the PRO Pack

| DIR and total size including subdirectories

! | Directory Opus

|

|

| DIR and total size including subdirectories

! | Dired

|

|

| Literal

|

| Total size including subdirectories

! | Dolphin

|

|

| Number of entries

! | Double Commander

|

|

| DIR

! | emelFM2

|

|

| Literal

|

! | Files (Apple)

|

! | Files by Google

|

! | Finder

|

|

! | ForkLift

|

| DIR and total size including subdirectories

! | GNOME Commander

|

|

! | Konqueror

|

| (with konq-plugin)

| (with kdiff3 plugin)

|

| Folder only size (default) selectable to file count/total size

! | Krusader

|

|

! | Midnight Commander

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

! | muCommander

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

| , command execution only

|

! | GNOME Files (Nautilus)

|

| , With Plugin

| Number of entries

! | Nemo

| ?

|

| ?

| , with nemo-terminal extension

! | Nomad.NET

|

| , via Plugin

| DIR and total size including subdirectories

! | Path Finder

|

|

! | PCManFM

|

| , but there is a fork attempt

| Nothing

! | ROX-Filer

|

| , and browsing with tab completion

|

| Nothing

! | Thunar

|

| Configurable

! | Total Commander

|

| In plugin

|

| DIR and total size including subdirectories

! | Windows Explorer

|

| (in folder tooltips)

|

! | Worker

! | Xandros File Manager

|

|

! | Xfe

|

|

! | Xfile

|

|

! | Xfm

|

|

! | xplorer²

|

|

! | XYplorer

|

|

| Contents including subs

! | ZTreeWin

|

|

| Selectable: number of entries or size (optional: including subs)

|- class="sortbottom"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! Symbolic links

! Slideshows

! Shows combined size of selected directories

! Branch sizes

! Directory compare

! Synchronizer

! Find as you type (Type-ahead find)

! Embedded/integrated terminal

! For directories, size column shows:

Search features

Information on what file searching features the file managers support. RegExp include the possibilities of nested Boolean searches, thus implicitly all file managers supporting RegExp search support also Boolean searches.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: auto;"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! File name

! | Commander One

! | Dolphin

! | Double Commander

! | emelFM2

! | FAR Manager

! | GNOME Files (Nautilus)

! | ZTreeWin

|- class="sortbottom"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! File name

Entry Notes (s)

Extensibility

Information on which parts of the application can be extended by plugins.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: auto;"

! style="width:12em" | File manager

! Filesystem support

! Attribute columns

! File previews

! Metadata indexing

! Unicode support

! Visual themes

! | Altap Salamander

! | Commander One

! | Directory Opus

! | Dired

! | Dolphin

! | Double Commander

Notes

External links

What's the best file manager for Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 Trusty? by Rich Lott, May 2014
Softpanorama Orthodox File Managers page (Home of the OFM standard)
Comparison of some "light" File Managers in GNU/Linux (in spanish)