Claus Conrad

macOS file managers

2 min read

Finder

  • The included, default choice. Pretty basic.
  • Can connect to: SMB, AFP

Commander One

  • Pricing: Basic version free forever, premium version USD 29.99 (one-time purchase of current major version and minor upgrades), USD 44.98 incl. all future updates (incl. major versions). Pricing per machine (not per user).
  • Homebrew: brew install --cask commander-one, 4638 installs during the last year
  • Can connect to (premium version): FTP, SFTP, FTPS, S3, WebDAV, Dropbox, OneDrive (personal and business), Google Drive, OpenStack Swift, Box, Backblaze B2, iOS, MTP, Android
  • Archive formats: ZIP, RAR (extract only), TBZ, TGZ, 7z

ForkLift

  • Pricing: USD 49.95 (one-time purchase incl. minor updates) or subscription
  • Homebrew: brew install --cask forklift, 4331 installs during the last year
  • Can connect to: FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, Google Drive, Rackspace, Backblaze B2, and more

Path Finder

  • Pricing: USD 29.95 (yearly subscription) or one-time purchase
  • Homebrew: brew install --cask path-finder, 915 installs during the last year
  • Can connect to: Dropbox, FTP

Double Commander

  • Open source
  • Homebrew: brew install --cask double-commander, 3417 installs during the last year, but will be disabled on 2026-09-01 as it does not pass the macOS Gatekeeper check (i.e., the code is not signed with a valid Developer ID by an identified developer, running it could potentially compromise your Mac’s security)

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