Browse and manage your Windows file system via a split-screen interface to operate two file trees at once - move up and down through the two lists of multiple folders and drill down to sub-levels and files; drag-and-drop them from one list to another to move or copy files between locations. Navigate, view and extract archives of various formats: ZIP, 7ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, etc.
Despite the undeniable usefulness of Windows File Manager, its limited functionality and the despairingly slow development over the years, make tools like Total Commander a much-needed complement to the file management requirements of the average Windows user. Thus, this tool, with its two-pane interface and a wealth of useful utilities, can perfectly replace (and improve in more than one way) that obsolete File Manager.
Something as simple as a two-pane window where you can view the contents of two folders or even two disks at once is something that Microsoft has been unable to implement in decades. This simple feature is the first thing you see when you launch the program. Then you can decide which of the available views better fits your needs and preferences and customize each pane to present your PC contents as a list, a tree, thumbnails, etc., and even change the look of the button bar.
Once you’ve selected the folders or disks (including remote disks via FTP) you want to work with and start browsing the various menus and options available, you’ll begin to understand why you needed a tool like Total Commander. Files and folders are displayed in all their glory complete with whatever attributes you prefer (including id3 tags for audio files, for instance), though I sorely missed the possibility to know the size of a folder straight away. However, to compensate for this and other minor flaws (such as the option to export to file a list of the elements displayed in the panes without any fiddling about), you will enjoy a Multi-rename tool, a file comparison utility that looks at the contents of the files and displays their differences, a folder synchronization tool, an advanced search function, pack and unpack files and archives, and so on.
Not being a free tool and knowing what other free options are out there, I find Total Commander a bit laggy in some respects. Having said that, it is but fair to say that those interested in purchasing the corresponding license will appreciate a program that works like a charm, that is comprehensive and easy to use, and that is miles away from the old fashioned and limited Windows File Manager.
v9.5 [Nov 8, 2019]
User interface:
- Dark mode, starting with Windows XP, full support with Windows 10 1809 (Fall 2018), inofficially also with older Windows versions (ForceDarkModeOptions=1).
- Mouse cursor now jumps to default button if this is enabled in Control Panel under "Mouse".
- Show up to 3 connected USB devices without drive letter (e.g. phones, tablets) also in drive buttonbar.
- Increased directory history length to 200 (configurable via HistoryLenStored).
- History: Only show directories in which the user performed some operation (configurable). Alt Shift Down arrow shows full history.
- Drive dropdown list, drive buttonbar: Show "eject" overlay over drive icon for removable drives.
- When scrolling through file lists with the keyboard, keep a margin of 4 lines above/below the current position (configurable).
- Directory panels: Show <LINK> for hard links/soft links to files instead of 0 size.
- Ctrl Q quick view: Show contents of link target instead of lnk file content.
- Configuration - Options - Display: New option "Append \" to show folders as Folder\ instead of [Folder].
- Internal associations: Optional: Add extra verbs from ALL matching filters, default "open" only from the first match.
- Show "New" submenu also in context menu for [.] entry, to create new file in current directory.
- Windows 10, context menu: Menu item "Share" didn't do anything -> handle it internally.
- Quick search dialog: Clear search with Ctrl Y.
- Right click on directory tab -> "Recently closed tabs".
- Show location of Total Commander EXE file in about box.
File operations:
- Archives: Choose codepage when unpacking files, e.g. to unpack names with cyrillic characters. Show [Auto] or chosen encoding in tab header.
- OneDrive folder: Handle folders appearing as file system links.
- F5 copy dialog: Support directory hotlist (Ctrl D).
- Create CRC checksums: New options to use Unix format, and to always use UTF-8.
- Support substrings from environment variables, e.g. %variable:~2,3%.
FTP / File system plugins:
- Transfer from FTP server to FTP server with F5: Option to copy via local PC.
- Transfer from/to FTP/FS plugins: Support copy filters like the local file copy function, e.g. *.txt | excludeddir\.
- FTP, upload/download with F5 - F2 in background: Support client certificate.
- RestrictInterface=6144: Disallow all plugins, or 4096: Only allow plugins with a valid digital signature.
Multi-rename tool:
- New placeholder [c] = number of files in list.
- New placeholder [S] = file size.
Alt F10 tree:
- Option to use 'Everything' to load the tree.
- Combobox to change drive, open with Alt F1 or Alt F2.
Search:
- Search with 'Everything': Show percent of the search results transferred to Total Commander.
- Improved search in Office xml files (e.g. .docx, .ods etc): find accented characters.
- Automatically check 'Everything' option when using prefix ev: or ed: in search field.
- Option to search in search results only.
- View previous search results.
Lister (F3):
- Define which view method and plugin should be used when opened, separately by file type, e.g. all jpg files with internal image viewer.
- Press '8' to show preview as the Explorer (uses IPreviewHandler or IThumbnailProvider if the former isn't available).
- Support printing of JPG/PNG/GIF in Lister with internal image viewer.
Compare by content:
- Set color for underlined search results.
Synchronize dirs:
- Use Ctrl PageUp/PageDown to jump to next/previous directory.
Internal commands:
- New internal commands with parameters: LOADSELECTION, SAVESELECTION, SAVEDETAILS plus ANSI/Unicode versions.
- cm_ModernShare allows to use the new Windows 10 "Share" context menu item directly.
- cm_ChangeArchiveEncoding to open the archive encoding popup menu.
- cm_MoveTabLeft and cm_MoveTabRight to manually move current tab.
Share images, video and music between your Android and Windows devices
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