A see-through window
Set the opacity and the material — soft, frosted, clear, crystal or unblurred: your wallpaper stays visible behind your files.
New · Folia Files 1.3 for macOS
The file manager
that feels like yours.
Dual-pane, or as many panes side by side as you like, arranged by dragging. Your clouds and servers in the sidebar, a search that looks inside your documents and images, an assistant that does what you ask, dozens of tools — and a look you can tune down to the last detail.
7 days, every feature, no credit card · macOS 14 or later
Everything is included: no companion app to install.
What users say- Native Mac app, written in Swift
- Updates included, no subscription
- No account, no tracking
- One license for 3 Macs
- In 8 languages
Customization
Make it yours.
Twenty-eight ready-made themes — eight built in, twenty more in the gallery — or your own, from the accent color to the roundness of the panes. A see-through window that lets your desktop show. Colored folders with their own symbol, in the Finder too. Even a background picture for each folder.
A background for each folder
A color, a gradient or a picture behind a folder's files, for that folder only or with its subfolders. A veil keeps the names readable.
Folders that look like you
A color, a symbol or an emoji for your folders: you spot them at a glance, in the panes, the sidebar and the Finder.
Everything is adjustable
Accent and gradients, corners, spacing, density, fonts and weight, selection, sidebars, toolbar, menu bar, terminal colors… Save your theme, export it, share it — or take one of the twenty in the gallery.
In detail:Themes and customization
See-through
Your desktop, right through the window.
Make Folia Files as transparent as you like. With no blur, your wallpaper and the windows behind stay sharp under a light veil — or frost it, if you prefer. Drag the window and slide the transparency: these are real captures of the app.
Turn it on in View › Translucent Window, then pick the material — no blur, soft, frosted, clear or crystal — and how see-through it is in Settings › Themes. It works with every theme.
Panes, tabs and scenes
All your folders, side by side.
Drag “New Pane” to any edge of the window or of a pane: it splits right there, as often as you like. Swap two panes by dropping one on the other, keep each arrangement in its own tab and save the ones you love as scenes. Drag from one pane to another to copy or move.
Drag a new pane
Drop it on any edge: the window splits there, and you choose what the new pane shows — a folder or any module.
Scenes ⇧⌘T
Save a tab as it is — layout, folders, each pane's view — and bring it back from a grid of thumbnails, or with ⌃⌘1 to ⌃⌘9.
Each folder its own view
View, sort, groups, icon size and hidden files: each pane keeps its own as you browse, and its gear saves them for one folder or a whole tree. Group by kind, date, size, tag or app.
A terminal in a pane
It opens in the pane's folder and follows it as you browse. Fifteen color schemes, or your own.
The right sidebar
Twenty-three modules next to your panes — info, preview, notes, your photos on a map, live activity, versions, the Shelf… — or under the left sidebar, or as panes of their own.
Workspaces
The whole window — every tab, its size, its screen — saved and reopened from the Window menu.
Views
Nine ways to see a folder.
Each pane picks its own view, one click away in its header or ⌘1 to ⌘9 — and a folder can keep the one that suits it.
In detail:Panes, tabs and scenes
Modules
Everything at hand, right beside your files.
Twenty-three modules to keep next to your folders: in the right sidebar, under the left one, or as a pane of their own. Pick one, choose where it goes — what you see is the real app.
Where it goes
Modules
And Disks — free space and eject —, Tree — your favorites, clouds, servers and disks, driving the pane you pick —, Layouts — your scenes and workspaces, one click away — and Mac Care — your Mac’s health at a glance — for twenty-three modules in all.
In detail:ModulesPanes, tabs and scenes
Clouds and servers
Your clouds and servers, like disks.
iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and pCloud show up in the sidebar on their own. Add your NAS and your servers: SMB, WebDAV, FTP, AFP, NFS, and with rclone, SFTP, S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, pCloud or Box.
- Mounted like disks Your connections appear in Folia Files, in the Finder and in the Open and Save dialogs of every app.
- Edit in place Open a file from a server in the app of your choice: every save goes back, after checking nobody changed it there meanwhile.
- Sync Keep two folders identical, on the Mac or with a server, on demand, on a schedule or at every change.
- Back up Dated copies of your important folders on a disk or a NAS — continuously, on a schedule or when the disk is plugged in — and any file restored in one click.
SFTP, S3 and direct cloud connections rely on rclone, a free open-source tool that comes with the app: nothing to install. Clouds installed with their own app and network shares need nothing more.
In detail:Servers and cloudsSync and backups
Search
Find anything, right away.
Press ⌘P and type a few letters: folders, files, tabs and commands arrive as you type. Look for words inside your documents and screenshots, or for what your photos show, add as many criteria as you like — or simply ask, in plain words.
Quick open ⌘P
Files, folders, tabs and commands, from the keyboard, in a few letters.
Inside documents and images
Type a few words: Folia Files finds the documents that contain them all — through Spotlight, in PDFs, Word, Pages and more — and the screenshots and scans whose text says them; choose Images, and it finds the photos that show them. Images are read on your Mac, and each result says why it was found.
Ask Folia ⌘J
Write what you want — “move the screenshots on my Desktop to Screenshots”, “PDFs over 5 MB” — and Folia Files shows exactly what it will do before doing it. ⌃⌥Space from any app. On your Mac, with Apple Intelligence when available.
One search for everything
The toolbar's Find button, ⇧⌘F or a pane's magnifying glass: choose where — everywhere, a disk, folders — and what to look in — the name, the text or what images show. Folia Files picks the fastest way, and its ⓘ says what the search covers. Criteria in one click, joined by “and” or “or”, and your saved searches in the sidebar.
Suggested names
Folia Files reads your screenshots, photos, scans and documents and suggests a meaningful name and tags, on the Mac.
Saved searches
Keep a search in the sidebar: it stays up to date, like a folder that files itself.
Recent downloads
Your latest downloads in one list, ready to file, rename or send to the Trash.
In detail:Search
Tools
A complete toolbox.
Everything you would look for in ten little apps, together in tabs — and every operation can be undone.
Batch rename
Templates, numbering, dates, replacements, case — with a preview of every new name before you apply, and ⌘Z after.
Operations and history
Every copy, move, rename and trash, day after day, in the toolbar's Operations: undo or redo any line, or press ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z.
Duplicates
Identical copies (SHA-256 fingerprint), and which one to keep.
Compare
Two folders (added, removed, changed) or two text files.
Batch actions
Resize, crop, convert photos; trim, compress, extract the audio of videos. Describe it in a sentence.
PDF tools
Combine, reorder, rotate, extract, split, compress, and make the text of scans searchable.
Automatic rules
Watch a folder and file, rename or tag whatever lands in it, by itself.
Tags
All your tags, the files that carry them, and ways to rename, merge or recolor them.
Trash
Every disk's Trash in one place, Put Back in one click; a toolbar button and a sidebar section.
Import a card
Photos and videos from a camera card, sorted by shooting day, every copy verified, nothing imported twice.
Archives as folders
Open a ZIP or a TAR like a folder, read-only, and drag out what you need; compress to ZIP or 7z, each item apart if you like, and Extract To any pane.
In detail:ToolsBatch rename
Mac care
More space, and a Mac in shape.
See what fills your disk, free space safely and uninstall apps for real.
Space Lens
Your disk as bubbles: spot the biggest folders and clean up.
Mac care
Mac health, one-click analysis, protection, performance, applications and clutter.
Cleanup
Caches, logs, developer files, trash: what goes is explained before it is removed.
Applications
Uninstall one app or several with all their leftovers, spot the ones you no longer use, find orphaned leftovers.
In detail:Mac care and Space Lens
Everywhere on your Mac
Folia Files follows you into every app.
Not just a window: a drawer at the edge of the screen, a clipboard history, your folders in Open and Save dialogs, a monitor in the menu bar — and global shortcuts to reach them from any app.
The drawer
Drag a file against the edge of the screen, or press ⌃⌥E: the drawer opens over any app, with your Shelf, Favorites, clipboard and AirDrop, on the edge you choose.
Clipboard history
⌃⌥V: what you copied — text, images, links, colors — ready to paste again, also from the menu bar. Passwords are never kept. Turn it on in Settings.
Open and Save dialogs
A panel next to the dialogs of every app — your folders, recent files and the Shelf: one click takes the dialog there.
Menu bar
Processor, memory and disk in four styles, the progress of your copies, the clipboard, keep awake and eject — one click away.
Animations from the app's welcome tour.
In detail:Drawer and ShelfClipboard historyOpen and Save assistant
Videos
Every feature, filmed in action.
Tutorials of about a minute and twenty-second shorts, filmed in the real app on a Mac.
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Two folders side by side
Drag New Pane into the window, pick a folder, copy across with F5 (F6 moves), and undo with ⌘Z.
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Clipboard history
Press ⌃⌥V in any app: everything you copied is there. Type a few letters, press Return, and it's pasted where you were.
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Rename photos by the date they were taken
Select photos, right-click, Batch Rename and add the date they were taken: every new name shows before anything changes, and ⌘Z undoes it.
And also
The details that make the difference.
Everything else Folia Files does for you, at a glance.
Copies that resume
A network copy that drops waits, then resumes where it stopped — verified if you like.
Nothing overwritten
Replacing a file puts the old one in the Trash first: nothing disappears behind your back.
A frozen server never freezes the app
Everything on a network disk is read in the background: a server that stops answering never locks up the window.
Cloud sync at a glance
Uploading, downloading, waiting, in conflict: the status of iCloud Drive (and of the clouds that report it) next to each name.
Cloud files, opened when they arrive
A file still in the cloud is downloaded, then opened — the cloud badge says how far along it is and the time left.
Your apps' iCloud folders
Keynote, Pages, Preview and the other apps' folders under iCloud Drive in the sidebar, as in the Finder.
Quick Look extension
Folia Files' previews of code, JSON, Markdown and archives, right in the Finder and Mail.
Rich previews
Code, Markdown, JSON, CSV, fonts and archives, previewed with the Space bar.
Photos and videos, from the menu
Resize, convert, rotate or flip a photo, strip its location; turn a video into MP4, 1080p, 720p or M4A audio — always a new file beside the original.
Quick Actions and Services
Your Automator Quick Actions, shortcuts and other apps' services at the end of the context menu, as in the Finder — and Share lists Messages, Mail, AirDrop… right in it.
Your context menu
Settings › Context Menu: keep each action in the menu, tuck it into More or hide it, and drag to reorder.
Open in your editor
Open in Editor sends files and folders to VS Code, Cursor, Zed, Sublime Text, Xcode or a JetBrains IDE — the ones you have.
AirDrop
An AirDrop module in the sidebar or the drawer: drop files on it to send them.
Favorites sections
Group your favorite folders into your own sections, in the sidebar and in the drawer.
Synced navigation
Two panes browse together: open a subfolder on one side, the other follows.
Copy or move to the other pane
F5 copies the selection to the other pane, F6 moves it there; Copy To and Move To in the context menu reach a favorite or a recent folder — and ⌘Z undoes it.
New Folder with Selection
⌃⌘N puts the selected items in a new folder, ready to be named, as in the Finder — and ⌘Z puts them back.
Hide without renaming
Hide a file or a folder without a dot in its name, and Unhide it — in Folia Files and in the Finder alike.
Tabs between windows
Drag a tab out of the bar to give it its own window, or onto another window to join its tabs — panes, history and terminals included.
A scene for new tabs
⌘T and ⌘N can open the scene of your choice: your Preview and Info panes arranged your way, every time.
Click to rename
Click the name of a selected file to rename it in place, in every view, like the Finder.
Frame selection
⇧-drag a frame in every view, then ⇧-click to add or remove single items.
Hidden files, per folder
⇧⌘. shows hidden files in one pane only — and the pane's gear keeps them shown for that folder.
Folders on top, columns that fit
Folders above files or mixed in, and in columns each column as wide as its longest name, never wider than the first, with or without the preview column — per pane, saved per folder.
Dimensions and duration
Two more columns for pictures, videos and sounds, in the detailed list and the tree.
Copy speed at a glance
The status bar of a pane shows how fast a copy goes and the time left.
Tagged rows in color
The whole row of a tagged item in its tag’s color, in lists, the tree and Branches — one setting.
Light or dark
Follow macOS, or keep Folia Files light or dark whatever the system does — the themes adapt to both.
Terminal colors from iTerm2 and Ghostty
Website edition: import any iTerm2 or Ghostty color scheme into the built-in terminal — hundreds are online — or export your own.
The visor
A global shortcut slides the window down from the top of the screen, and back up.
Global shortcuts
⌃⌥F Folia Files, ⌃⌥Space Ask Folia, ⌃⌥E drawer, ⌃⌥V clipboard — from any app, all changeable.
Pinned clipboard items
⌘P pins what you paste again and again: it stays at the top of the clipboard history (⌃⌥V) and in the menu bar, and never expires.
Keep the Mac awake
No sleep during long copies, backups and imports — or on demand from the menu bar.
Smarter eject
A disk that won't eject tells you which app is using it, and lets you quit that app.
A Trash that really empties
Website edition: apps installed for all users go after a single password prompt, and Folia Files says what stays and why.
From the Finder
Your Finder favorites and view settings, taken over in one click — and undone as easily.
Shortcuts and Spotlight
Shortcuts actions for scenes, rules, syncs and backups; your scenes and favorites in Spotlight.
Widgets and Control Center
Disk space and shortcut widgets, plus Control Center buttons for the drawer and Quick Open.
AppleScript and Share
A full AppleScript dictionary, and a Share menu entry that puts files on your Shelf.
Git at a glance
A project's git branch shows in its pane header, next to the folder.
Select by pattern
⌥⌘A selects every file whose name matches, in the current folder.
Every shortcut on one sheet
⌘/ shows every shortcut and gesture of the app, by topic.
Smart suggestions
When Downloads piles up or duplicates appear, a hint takes you to the right tool — if you want it.
Notifications in one place
Banners in the corner of the window, all of them again behind the toolbar's bell — and Settings › Notifications for new downloads and suggestions.
Search everywhere
A search looks on every disk and cloud of this Mac at once, or in the places you tick.
Instant search
⌘F searches the folder you're in as you type, right under the pane's header.
Searches that stay up to date
With Spotlight or Folia Files' index, files that arrive, change or leave show in the results as it happens; ⌘R runs any search again.
Search in Settings
⌘F in Settings finds any setting and takes you right to it.
Dates your way
Short, long or ISO dates, with or without the time, and “5 min ago” if you like.
Google Docs files
Docs, Sheets and Slides files get their own icons and open in your browser.
Finder comments
The comments you wrote in the Finder show in Info, and can be edited there.
Accessibility
Named buttons for VoiceOver, and Reduce Transparency, Increase Contrast and Reduce Motion followed as soon as you change them.
Compress with progress
Compressing shows its progress file by file, and can be paused or cancelled.
Updates in the app
The website edition downloads, checks and installs its updates itself — automatically if you like.
Your default file manager
“Show in Finder” in other apps can open Folia Files instead — one setting away.
In detail:All the featuresTerminal and commandsThe best Finder alternatives
Privacy
Your files stay with you.
No account, no tracking, no usage analytics. Indexing, text recognition, suggestions and AI run on your Mac.
No account
Download, open, work.
No analytics
No ads, no tracking. An anonymous report if the app crashes or freezes, which you can turn off.
All on device
Index, text recognition, suggestions and Apple Intelligence stay on the Mac.
Your settings follow you
Backed up to iCloud or to a folder, ready to restore on another Mac.
Editions
Website or Mac App Store?
It is the same app, at the same price. The website edition has everything, right after installing. On the Mac App Store, Apple's sandbox blocks some features: most come back with Folia Files Companion, a small free app installed next to it.
Everything included
Website edition
Everything is included from the start: no companion app, nothing else to add.
- Every feature, terminal and commands included
- One license for 3 Macs at a time, paid through Paddle
- Every update included, offered in the app
Coming soon
Mac App Store
Bought and updated through Apple. Some features go through Folia Files Companion, free.
- In-app purchase, tied to your Apple Account
- SFTP and clouds, sync, Open/Save dialogs and full Mac care with the companion
- No built-in terminal nor custom commands
| Feature | Website | App Store | App Store + companion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panes, tabs, scenes, search, Ask Folia, tools, themes and see-through window | Included | Included | Included |
| Space Lens, cleanup, applications, Mac care dashboard | Included | Included | Included |
| Network shares (SMB, AFP, NFS, WebDAV, FTP) and backups | Included | Included | Included |
| Clipboard, drawer, menu bar | Included | Included | Included |
| SFTP, S3 and clouds through rclone | Included | Not included | Included |
| Folder sync | Included | Not included | Included |
| Open and Save dialog assistant | Included | Not included | Included |
| Full Mac care: protection, performance, cloud | Included | Not included | Included |
| Uninstall apps installed for all users | Included | Not included | Not included |
| Eject disks before sleep, force eject | Included | Not included | Not included |
| Finder “Get Info”, .DS_Store settings | Included | Not included | Included |
| Built-in terminal and custom commands | Included | Not included | Not included |
| Companion app | None | — | Folia Files Companion, free |
| Purchase | $49.99, once (Paddle) | $49.99, in-app purchase (Apple) | — |
| Updates | Included, in the app | Included, through the App Store | The companion updates itself |
Purchases do not carry over from one edition to the other.
Reviews
In their own words.
What people who use Folia Files tell us, published with their permission and without edits.
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Having used both QSpace Pro and Bloom, I was looking for a Finder alternative that felt fast and capable without becoming cumbersome. QSpace Pro is feature-rich, but I found it became a bit bloated and slow over time/updates; Bloom is very fast and nicely balanced in terms of features, though some frustrating bugs have persisted through multiple updates.
Folia Files has impressed me with its speed, depth of features, and flexibility. The developer is just as impressive: communicative, genuinely open to feedback, and quick to address suggestions and bugs.
Arnaud G. -
As a teacher and university lecturer working with Arabic and German materials, I find Folia Files’ combination of file organisation and content-focused tools particularly relevant to preparing lessons and managing academic documents. The addition of Arabic search, OCR for scanned Arabic texts, and notes on individual files addresses priorities I raised for my own workflow, and I look forward to exploring these features more fully. I especially appreciate the developer’s openness to feedback and the care taken to turn educators’ suggestions into practical improvements.
M. OsmanTeacher and University Lecturer
Pricing
One price.
Yours for good.
No subscription, no account. Try every feature for 7 days, then buy once: every future update is included.
Folia Files license
Website edition · everything included
$49.99once
- Every feature: terminal, servers, sync and Mac care included
- No companion app to install
- 3 Macs at a time, for good
- Every update included, no subscription
- Your key right away, and by email
- Refund within 14 days
7 days free, no card needed.
After the trial, the purchase is needed to keep using the app.
For a team: from 5 licenses, 20% off. Write to us and we'll send you a purchase link.
Secure checkout by Paddle, our authorized reseller.
Prefer the Mac App Store? Folia Files arrives there soon, at the same price; some features go through Folia Files Companion (free) there, and the terminal is not included. Purchases do not carry over from one edition to the other. Compare editions
Folia Files at a glance
- Platform
- macOS 14 or later, universal app (Apple silicon and Intel)
- Price
- $49.99, one-time purchase, every future update included, no subscription — one license for 3 Macs at a time
- Trial
- 7 days free, every feature, no account or credit card
- Editions
- Website edition (everything included) or, coming soon, Mac App Store (free download, the same price as an in-app purchase after the 7-day trial; some features with the free Folia Files Companion)
- Languages
- English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Simplified Chinese
- Privacy
- No account, no tracking; indexing, text recognition and AI run on the Mac
- Developer
- Wonderlink SL, Spain
FAQ
Questions, answered.
It works alongside it. Use Folia Files for everything you do with files — it can even bring over your Finder favorites and settings in one click, and become the default, so “Show in Finder” in other apps opens Folia Files instead.
No, not with the website edition: everything is included. The companion is only for the Mac App Store edition, for the features Apple's sandbox blocks (SFTP and clouds, sync, Open/Save dialogs, full Mac care).
For the most part, yes: a Folia Files panel appears next to the Open and Save dialogs of every app, with the folder open in Folia Files, your favorites, your recent folders and files, and your Shelf. It uses macOS's Accessibility permission. In the Mac App Store edition, it goes through Folia Files Companion, which holds that permission.
Folia Files then asks you to buy it to keep going: one license, once, for 3 Macs at a time. Until then, the app only opens the purchase window; your files stay exactly where they are.
No. You pay once, $49.99, and your license is yours for good, with every future update.
Yes. Your license includes every future update, new major versions too: no upgrade fee, no subscription.
On 3 Macs at a time. To move to another Mac, free one in Folia Files › License and Purchase… or on the Recover a license page, then activate the new one. Activation needs an Internet connection; after that, Folia Files checks its license once a day when the Mac is online, and keeps working for up to 60 days offline.
Yes: from 5 licenses, the website edition is 20% off. Each person needs their own license, for up to 3 of their Macs at a time. Write to support@foliafiles.com with the number of licenses: we'll send you a purchase link with the discount already applied. All the keys arrive in one email, and Paddle issues an invoice in your company's name, with its VAT number. On the Mac App Store, everyone buys it with their own Apple Account.
Same app, same price — the Mac App Store edition is coming soon. The website edition has everything, with nothing else to install. On the Mac App Store, some features go through Folia Files Companion (free) and the built-in terminal is not included. Purchases do not carry over from one to the other. Compare the editions.
Folia Files is a native Mac app for macOS 14 or later. Ask Folia works on every supported Mac — it understands English and French on its own — and uses Apple Intelligence on macOS 26 and compatible Macs.
Yes. Folia Files is a universal app: native on Apple silicon Macs (M1 and later) and on Intel Macs, with macOS 14 or later.
As little as possible. There's no account and no usage analytics. Indexing, text recognition and suggestions run on your Mac. The website edition checks for updates and checks its license once a day; payments are handled by Paddle. If the app crashes or freezes, it sends us an anonymous technical report, without file names (Settings › General to turn it off). Details in our privacy policy.
They rely on rclone, the free open-source tool, which comes with Folia Files: nothing to install, no macFUSE, no admin rights. Network shares (SMB, AFP, NFS, WebDAV, FTP) need nothing extra.
It happens. Enter your email address and we'll send it again.
Yes, within 14 days of purchase, through our reseller Paddle: use the link in your receipt, or write to support@foliafiles.com. Full details: refund policy.
English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
Nearly: 28 ready-made themes or your own (colors, gradients, corners, spacing, density), an adjustable see-through window, fonts and their weight, the size of text and icons, the color and symbol of each folder, a background picture per folder, the sidebars, the toolbar and the terminal colors. Your theme can be exported and shared.
Folia Files is built for exactly that: every operation is logged and can be undone, deletions go to the Trash, and moving to another disk keeps the originals until everything has been copied.
Another question? Visit support or write to support@foliafiles.com.
Your files deserve better.
Try Folia Files free for 7 days. No account, no card — and nothing else to install.
7 days, every feature, no credit card · macOS 14 or later