Anyone know of a Finder replacement?

Question

I am starting to dislike the Finder. Does anybody know of a good Finder replacement, something Unixy or Nexty which will still work with all Mac OS X applications?

Answer 1

When it comes to alternatives of Finder, there are two major alternatives.

First, you have TotalFinder. It looks a lot like the normal Finder, but it can do so much more. You can copy/paste across windows, you can work with tabs or dual screen,... It's my personal favorite. I've been using it for many months now.

The second alternative is PathFinder. I don't have any personal experience with this software, but when I take a look at their website, it has some cool features too.

So, my advice is to check those two options and I can suggest you TotalFinder!

Answer 2

Terminal might sound like a cop-out, but it's as Unix-y as it gets, loaded with Command Line Goodness. To better integrate into the Mac experience, be sure to check out the open command, which can launch applications, or open files using their designated application.

Answer 3

I'm a big fan of ForkLift (free trial, $30). It isn't cheap, but it's well worth it.

It's basically a souped-up version of Finder for power users.
I recommend that you try out the beta of version 2.5; it's stable and has some features that the stable version is missing.

A few of my favorite features

• Dual-paned windows
• Tabs
• Store commonly used 'workspaces'
• Save and mount remote connections
• Work with archives without unpacking them

One especially Unix-y feature is the ability to create 'tools', which are shell scripts to run on selected files.

Answer 4

As @DanielL said, Terminal can be a great solution, however I wouldn't use the default Apple terminal for this, I would run TermKit since it has a nice graphical interface despite its terminal-ness. Using terminal commands and typing in the name of each file loses the 'finding' aspect of the Finder, where emphasis is placed less on exactly where the file is, especially on Mac OS Lion. While tab-completion partially fixes this, it still has a lot to catch up on.

Answer 5

Perhaps not what you had in mind, but for something "terminal like," I use Alfred, which is (IMHO) the best-of-class in application launchers. The basic version is free, but I liked it so well I sent them $45 or so for their deluxe enhanced version family site license plus lifetime free updates. There are other price-points, as well.

In practice, you hit a hot key and start typing the name of an application, document, script, website, email, whatever, and it presents you with a list of ten things it thinks are close matches. You then pick one using mouse or hot keys. It then "learns" your abbreviation, and moves your choice to the top of the list next time.

It does lots of other stuff, as well, such as keystroke folder navigation.

I loathe crawling around the Finder for stuff, and don't even like using the Dock. With Alfred, I drive about 50% by keyboard.

Answer 6

For NeXTy try RBrowswer It is really a ftp client but the file browsing works like NeXT's file manager including shelves

Answer 7

You may find this post interesting:

5 Alternatives to the OS X Finder (It includes descriptions with some pictures)

Sumarizing the post:

1-Xfolders
2-mucommander
3-Disk Order
4-FileBrowse
5-Path Finder

Answer 8

I use both TotalFinder and PathFinder.

For general Finder-type things, I find TotalFinder very similar to the Finder with the major benefit of Tabs (yeah!) and Dual Mode, where you get two Finder windows side-by-side. This is great for moving files between folders.

PathFinder has many more advanced features: You have 4 panes (2 on each side of the PathFinder window) that you can customize. I have mine to show:

1) Processes - showing all open apps

2) Selection Path - showing the full path to the selected file/folder

3) Recent Documents

4) Recent Folders

Below your PathFinder window you can set up various options, too. I have mine to show:

1) Info - similar to Get Info for the selected item

2) Preview - which is, well, a preview of the selected item

I have barely touched the full features of PathFinder. Check out:

http://www.cocoatech.com/docs/pf/start

for more details about AppleScript and developing for PathFinder.

Bottom line: If you want a simple enhancement to the Finder, I would suggest TotalFinder. If you are a scripter or programmer, I would go with PathFinder.