What's New in FileWorks v1.7

New

• Search rules. Below the search field, up to four rules narrow a search, each one a line that reads like a sentence: Content contains all words "notice", Name doesn't match pattern Draft, Modified within the last 30 days, Created is between two dates, Date Added is yesterday, Size is at least 1 MB, Type is Image, Tag is not Done, Storage is only in the cloud. All rules must apply. Use + to add a rule below a line and − to remove one. The button with the sliders shows or hides the rules, and FileWorks remembers your choice; hidden rules that are in effect stay visible as small labels next to the search field. A search can now also consist of rules alone, for example to find all files larger than 1 GB. Values that can't work, such as a size between 30 and 10 MB, are marked in red and the search waits until they are fixed. The same goes for rules that rule each other out, such as Type is Image together with Type is not Image, or Storage on this Mac together with only in the cloud. In a narrow panel, the search bar and its rules wrap onto further lines instead of running past the edge. Small text in the search bar is larger and darker, rule labels are easier to read in both light and dark mode, and This Mac and RegEx are clearly highlighted. Packages such as Xcode projects or apps count with their total size in a Size rule, and names are matched against the real file name as well as the displayed one, so *.app finds apps. The Name rule only excludes names; what a name should contain goes into the search field, and a Name rule that excludes exactly what the search field looks for is marked in red. When you change a search after running it, the results stay but are dimmed, and a line above the list says they belong to the previous search, with a button to search again.
• Search in the content of files. A Content rule finds the files that contain a text — or, the other way round, those that don't. Choose how the text is compared: all words somewhere in the file, the exact text, or a regular expression, with or without matching case. The pattern still works as before, so *.swift and TODO together read only Swift files. ⌥⌘F opens the search with the cursor in the content rule.
• Spotlight or reading the files. The content is searched either through the Spotlight index, which is fast and also finds words in PDF and Office documents, or by reading the files directly, which also works on network volumes and finds any part of a word. Reading covers text files as well as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OpenDocument files. Automatic uses Spotlight where the volume is indexed and reads the files otherwise; the help text of the button next to the content rule says which way a search took. FileWorks checks what Spotlight finds by the same rules as its own search: exclusions, hidden folders and the exact wording of text files.
• Where the text was found. For a content search, the line below the results shows the line of the selected file with the text highlighted, for example "Line 12", the page of a PDF or the paragraph of a Word document.
• Open tools at the found text. Custom tools get two new placeholders, {line} and {match}, and the environment variables FW_LINE and FW_MATCH: the line and the text a content search found in each file. A tool like bbedit +{line} {path} opens your editor right at that line.
• Search this Mac. The new place button at the start of the search bar switches between This Folder and This Mac. This Mac searches all volumes that Spotlight indexes; the Location column then shows the folder from your home folder, such as ~/Documents/Contracts.
• Saved searches. The bookmark button in the search bar saves the current search under a name: always in a fixed folder, in the folder of the active panel, or on this whole Mac. A saved search keeps the criteria, not the results, and searches again each time you open it. Searches with a fixed folder or for the whole Mac appear in a new Saved Searches section of the sidebar; all of them are in the bookmark menu and under Go › Saved Searches. If you change an opened saved search, the search bar offers to save the changes or to save it as a new search. Manage them on the new Search page of the settings, where you can also hide the sidebar section.
• Levels, skipped folders and hidden items. The place button of the search bar also sets how deep a search goes — this folder only, or one, two or three levels below it —, which folders it skips entirely, and whether it includes hidden items. The button shows all of this, for example "This Folder · 2 levels · 2 skipped".
• Find files that are only in the cloud. The Storage rule finds the files whose content is only in iCloud Drive or another cloud service, or those that are stored on this Mac — for example to see what to download before a trip. FileWorks looks at the files without downloading anything.
• Search inside packages. The place menu of the search bar has a new switch, Include Package Contents, to find files inside apps or Xcode projects.
• More types. Type rules now also know E-Book, Disk Image, Font, Package and Alias or Symlink.
• Match diacritics. A new switch in the pattern menu: with it, "Muller" no longer finds "Müller".
• Found text in names. In the result list, the part of a name that matched the search is highlighted.
• The Drop Shelf moves to the bottom of the window. The shelf is now a card below both panels instead of a stack in the sidebar, and it shows what it holds: the name, location, size and kind of each item, and in its header the number of items and their total size. Show or hide it with the new Drop Shelf button in the toolbar or View › Show Drop Shelf; while it is hidden, drag files onto that button to add them. New items appear at the top — several at once in the order you added them — and the shelf scrolls back to them, even if you had scrolled away. Closing the shelf removes its items — after asking, if there are any. The files themselves always stay where they are.
• Copy, move or pack from the Drop Shelf. Copy to Active Panel, Move to Active Panel and Pack … bring the items on the shelf — the selected ones, or all of them — to the folder of the active panel, with the usual conflict handling, progress and report. The help tag says how many items go where, for example "Move 3 items to “Documents”". The same commands are in Actions › Drop Shelf. Moved items leave the shelf; copied items stay. The commands are unavailable while the active panel shows an archive, search results or a read-only folder.
• Compact Drop Shelf. The arrow at the start of the shelf header switches between the list and a compact row of thumbnails with names, which needs far less height. With many items, the row scrolls sideways. When the window is too low for the list, the shelf turns compact by itself and goes back to the list when there is room again.
• Working with items on the shelf. Click, Command-click and Shift-click select items, and a click beside them clears the selection. Double-click an item to show it in its folder in the active panel. The context menu opens an item, shows it in the panel or in Finder, copies its path or removes it from the shelf. Dragging items out takes the whole selection along.
• Hide apps in hidden folders from Open With. Some programs keep apps for their own use in hidden folders, for example a copy of LibreOffice that another app uses in the background. macOS still offers such apps under Open With, often for almost every file. A new option in Settings › Advanced leaves them out of Open With in the context menu and the inspector. The default app of a file type always stays in the list.

Improved

• Faster search. Searching a folder on a local disk is about four times faster: a search across 140,000 files that took 12 seconds now takes under 3. A search also no longer stops after 200,000 items, so searching your home folder with hidden items now covers all of it instead of a random part. When a search stops at 50,000 results, the line below the search bar says so and tells you to narrow it down.
• Searches find iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive and cloud services such as OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive live in a hidden folder of your home folder. A search in your home folder or on this whole Mac now includes them, without searching the rest of the hidden Library folder. The Location column shows them as "iCloud Drive/…".
• Files only in the cloud are left alone. A content search never downloads anything. Files whose content is only in the cloud, and files larger than the limit, are counted and named below the search bar instead of being read. The limit is 20 MB and can be set between 1 and 500 MB in Settings › Advanced.
• Search, filter and mask bars look like part of the window. The bars above the list now sit on a floating card, like the commands at the side of the panel, instead of on the background of the list. They open and close smoothly, pushing the list along instead of fading in behind it and making it jump. In a narrow panel, the filter and mask bars now wrap onto a second line like the search bar, instead of cutting off their buttons at the edge. All text fields in them look the same, so the search field is recognisable as a field and the fields of the rules no longer stand out as dark patches. The explanation below the rules is gone; it now appears as help text on the rule. What you need to know, such as a value that can't work, is still shown there in red.
• Tag search shows readable locations. The results of a tag search from the sidebar show their folder from your home folder, like a search of the whole Mac.
• Tab bar and panel divider. The tab bar of each panel now runs along the full width of the panel, so the side toolbar and its edge no longer stick out next to it. The divider between the two panels shows a line on both sides; before, the left panel had no edge, and a small horizontal stroke sat in the middle of the divider.

Fixed

• Grey selection after closing the sidebar or the inspector. If the keyboard focus was in the sidebar or in the inspector when it closed, no panel got it back — with the right panel active, both lists showed the grey selection of an inactive window and the arrow keys did nothing. When the sidebar gave way while making the window narrower, the left panel became active instead of the right one. The panel that was active now keeps the focus, and a click on an item or a key press always gives it back to the active panel.
• Selection rectangle dragged straight down. In the list, a selection rectangle dragged exactly vertically selected nothing until the pointer moved sideways.
• Shift-click selected the wrong range in the list. After selecting many items and then clicking one, Shift-click or Shift-Up/Down could extend from a row far down the list instead of from the clicked item — for example in search results sorted by location, where it selected the first item plus everything from the bottom edge up to the second. The list now always extends from the item you clicked.
• A slow search pattern in Multi-Rename kept working. When a regular expression in Search & Replace took too long, Multi-Rename said so, but the calculation went on in the background, keeping one processor core busy. After a few such patterns, other operations that wait for a slow volume could fail. The calculation now stops, and the processor is idle again.
• Folders that are symbolic links. If a folder you opened from the sidebar, the jump list or Go to Folder was itself a symbolic link, for example a Documents folder that points into Dropbox, the list stayed empty with the message "The file couldn't be opened". FileWorks now opens the original folder, as Finder does and as a double-click on such a link in the list already did. Back takes you to where you came from.
• Folders opened from another app could be missing in the tab bar. When you opened a folder in FileWorks from another app, for example with Open With, the panel showed it, but its tab sometimes did not appear in the tab bar, and the bar stayed one tab behind until the next change. The new tab now always appears.
• Icons in Open With and Tools menus on macOS 27. Since macOS 27 shows menus without icons, Open With listed only the names of the apps, and tools appeared without their icons. The Open With submenu of the context menu and the Open With list in the inspector show the app icons again, as in the Finder. Tools show their app icon or symbol in every menu, the same one as in the action bar. The other menu items keep the plain look of the system.

What's New in FileWorks v1.6

New

• Tags page in the settings. A new Tags page lists every tag FileWorks knows. Uncheck a tag to hide it in the sidebar, or turn off the whole Tags section. Hidden tags stay on your files and remain available in the context menu and the inspector. The minus button forgets a tag you no longer use, and the plus button creates a new one, ready to assign to files. In the sidebar, right-click a tag to hide it, hide the section or open the new page.
• Services for files and folders. The FileWorks › Services menu now offers the services of other apps, for example to compress files or to open them in an editor. They work on the selected or marked items, or on the current folder if nothing is selected. The context menu offers them too; there, services work on the items you right-clicked, and on the folder itself when you right-click an empty area. Keyboard shortcuts you assigned to services in System Settings now work in FileWorks too. As in the Finder, only the services turned on in System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Services appear.

Fixed

• Tags removed from the sidebar came back. A tag removed from the sidebar reappeared as soon as FileWorks showed a file carrying it, for example after a restart. Hiding a tag now lasts.
• Tag colours in menus on macOS 27. Since macOS 27 shows menus without icons, the Tags submenu of the context menu and the Add Tag menu in the inspector lost their coloured dots. They show them again; the other menu items keep the plain look of the system.

What's New in FileWorks v1.5

New

• Buttons for search, filter and marking by pattern. Each file list now has three small buttons at the right end of its status line: Find Files, Filter and Mark by Pattern. Until now these were only available from the menu and by shortcut. A filled button shows that its bar is open; click it again to close the bar. The bars no longer have a close button of their own; Esc still closes them as before.
• Path of the selected search result. While search results are shown, a line below the list shows the full path from the search folder to the selected result. Click a folder in it to open that folder; the next step towards the result is selected there.
• Buy me a coffee. Help → Support FileWorks now offers a second way to support development besides Start: a coffee of any amount via Buy Me a Coffee, for example if you already own Start. The one- **time note after 30 days of use now also appears if Start is installed.

Improved

• Free space as a ring. The status line now shows the free space as a small ring with the amount next to it, instead of a filled bar with the text on top of it. In a narrow panel the ring stays when the number no longer fits. Click it for a redesigned details window: a larger ring shows used, purgeable and free space, followed by notes on what the volume means for your work, such as a missing Trash, and the drive itself. Technical details such as the UUID are folded away. The archive name shown in place of the free space has dropped its capsule in the same way.
• Archive details at a glance. The details window of an opened archive now starts with a verdict: a quiet "No issues" line, or a highlighted box if a password is missing or the catalog has findings. Two bars compare the unpacked and the packed size and say how much smaller the archive is. Below, a list of checks says what was found in plain sentences, including what a finding means for extracting, such as which of two duplicate entries is extracted.
• The filter bar stays open when you change folders. Until now it closed with every folder change, so you had to open it again in each folder. It now stays where it is and only its text is cleared. Because of that, ⌘F no longer closes an open bar right away: if the bar is open but you are working in the file list, ⌘F puts the cursor into the filter field; pressing it again there closes the bar. ⌘S and ⇧⌘S work the same way for marking by pattern.
• Search, filter and pattern bars appear in place. The first bar you opened slid in from above, across the status line. The bars now simply fade in where they belong.
• Location column in search results. The Location column now takes the width its longest entry needs and shares the available space with the Name column, instead of staying at a fixed width next to a half- **empty Name column. If a location still doesn't fit, the folders in the middle give way first, so you keep seeing where a path starts and where it ends. If you drag the column to a width of your own, it stays that way until you end the search.

Fixed

• Archive details next to the archive name. The details window of an opened archive pointed to a spot left of the archive name in the status line and opened upwards. It now sits at the name and opens downwards, like the volume details.
• Result count in a narrow search bar. In a narrow window, the number of results in the search bar wrapped digit by digit and made the bar three times as high. The number now keeps its width; the search field gives way instead.
• Go to Enclosing Folder for results in the search folder itself. For a search result that lies directly in the folder you searched, the command did nothing. It now ends the search and selects the item.

What's New in FileWorks v1.4

Improved

• Error messages name the cause. If a file can't be written, read or deleted, the message now adds the reason, such as an input/output error. If the connection to a network drive was probably interrupted, or the drive still has an item open, the message says so, so you know that trying again makes sense.
• Leftovers of failed copies are reported. FileWorks copies into a hidden temporary file first. If a copy fails and this file can't be deleted afterwards, for example because a network drive still has it open after a dropped connection, the report now lists it with its location. Until now it stayed behind unnoticed.
• Thumbnails stop loading when you leave a folder. If you opened a folder full of pictures or videos and moved on right away, FileWorks still created every thumbnail it had queued for that folder. It now drops the ones nobody is waiting for any more. This matters most on network drives, where each thumbnail means reading from a large file over the connection.

Fixed

• Large copies to a network drive no longer break off. If you switched folders on a NAS, in FileWorks or in Finder, while FileWorks copied a large file to it, the connection to the drive could drop and the copy failed. FileWorks kept the connection permanently full, so the drive had no time left for anything else. It now writes to network drives in steady 8 MB blocks and waits for each one, as Finder does. Copying is a little slower, but the drive stays responsive and the copy goes through. The same applies when you drag items out of an archive into a folder on a network drive.
• Switching folders during a copy to a network drive. If you switched folders on a NAS while a large copy to it was running, FileWorks could stop responding until the drive caught up, sometimes for minutes. Switching folders no longer waits for the drive. FileWorks also asks the drive for much less while it shows a folder there: no iCloud status, no check for files stored only online, and no localized names for ordinary folders. This leaves more of the connection to the copy.
• Browsing video folders during a copy to a network drive. While a copy to a NAS was running, opening a folder full of videos that Quick Look can't preview, such as MKV files, brought the drive to a halt for several seconds each time. FileWorks kept asking Quick Look for a thumbnail of every visible file, although none could ever appear. It now notices when Quick Look has nothing to offer for a file type and stops asking for that type. File types that do get thumbnails are not affected.
• Thumbnails after a temporary error. If Quick Look couldn't create a thumbnail once, for example because a network drive didn't respond in time, the file stayed without a thumbnail until you quit FileWorks. FileWorks now tries again after ten minutes.
• Flickering line while extracting from an archive. While a large file was copied out of an archive, the line under the progress bar jumped several times a second between the file name and "Reading archive: …", too fast to read either. "Reading archive" now only appears while FileWorks is still working its way through the archive to the file; once its data arrives, the line shows the file name and stays there. When you drag items out of an archive into another app, the line no longer stays stuck on an outdated "Reading archive: …" while the files are already being written.

What's New in FileWorks v1.3

New

• Open folders from other apps. FileWorks now appears under "Open With" for folders in Finder, and other apps, such as the Start launcher, can hand folders straight to FileWorks.
  • Each folder opens in a new tab in the active panel.
  • For a file, its folder opens with the file selected.
  • One handover opens at most ten tabs.
• Lock items. The inspector (⌥⌘I) has a "Locked" checkbox, just like Finder's, and it works for several items at once. The context menu offers Lock and Unlock as well. Locked items show a small lock in the list and in icon view.
• You decide when a replaced folder arrives incomplete. If a folder that replaces an existing one doesn't arrive completely, FileWorks no longer simply undoes everything. At the end of the job, you see what is missing and why, and choose Keep Both, Restore Previous or Keep New.
• Detailed report. The transfer report now contains every message and can be saved as a text file. Skipped items are listed with the reason.
• Protection when quitting. If you quit FileWorks while a job is still running, it asks first. If FileWorks ends unexpectedly, the next launch brings back folders that were being replaced.
• Created and Date Added columns. The list can now show when an item was created and when it was put into its folder, which helps you spot what arrived last, in Downloads for example. Switch them on under Settings › General › Columns; you can sort by both. When a panel gets narrow, all date columns get shorter together before any of them is hidden.
• Cloud section in the sidebar. iCloud Drive and cloud providers such as OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox now appear in the sidebar on their own, between Volumes and Network. A newly set-up provider shows up as soon as you switch back to FileWorks. You can hide the section or single entries from their context menu, or under Settings › Cloud.
• Your own cloud folders. Services that don't register with macOS, such as kDrive, Nextcloud or Synology Drive, can be added to the Cloud section on the new Settings › Cloud page.
• Open With in the inspector. As in Finder's Get Info window, the inspector lets you choose which app opens a file: just this one, or all files of its type with Change All. Other … picks any app.
• Show Package Contents. The context menu of an app or other package lets you look inside, as in Finder.
• Favorites by drag and drop. As in Finder, drag folders onto the sidebar to add them as favorites, and drag favorites to reorder them. Files dropped on a favorite are copied into it (⌥ moves them). Each favorite can have its own icon, for example for your own Documents or Downloads folder; choose it under Settings › Favorites.
• Icon size at hand. A slider on the right of the tab bar sets the icon size of the list or the icon view, and ⌘+ and ⌘− do the same step by step.
• Columns from the header. Right-click a column header to show or hide columns, as in Finder.

Improved

• Moving on the same drive merges folders. Merge and Replace All Older now work here too, without copying, so they finish instantly.
• File meets a folder of the same name. FileWorks always asks in this case, even after "Apply to all further conflicts". Replace states clearly that the folder is deleted with everything in it.
• Locked items. Instead of "permission denied", you get a clear message that tells you where to unlock the item.
• External SSDs. The sidebar now shows the eject button for them, along with the icon for external drives.
• Drives in a fixed order. The sidebar and the jump list (⌘1 / ⌘2) sort drives by type: the startup volume and other internal volumes first, then external drives, disk images and network drives, each group by name. Until now they appeared in the order they were connected, so a drive that was reconnected moved to the end. Disk images have their own icon.
• Network. For SMB, the server name is enough; macOS offers the shares to choose from when connecting. AFP only appears where macOS still supports it, because macOS 27 no longer includes an AFP client.
• NAS drives. If a NAS refuses Finder's .DS_Store files, as Synology does for example, FileWorks leaves them out instead of failing the job.
• Hidden companion files. If a source folder stays behind after moving only because of hidden "._" files, the report names them and offers Remove Leftovers.
• Long names. If an addition such as "(previous)" or "2" would make a name too long, FileWorks shortens it with "…" instead of failing.
• Archives. The context menu offers to open an archive with its default app, Archive Utility for example. A double-click still opens it as a folder in FileWorks.
• Window and tab titles. They now use the same names as the path bar, such as "iCloud Drive" instead of "com~apple~CloudDocs".
• Quick Look. In the preview, ↑ and ↓ switch to the previous or next file, as in Finder, and the preview follows whatever you select in the list.
• Cloud status for all providers. In the folders of OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive and other providers, and in your own cloud folders, the list now marks files that aren't stored on this Mac: a cloud with an arrow if opening the file downloads it, a plain cloud if only the service's app can download it, as with kDrive. The inspector shows the same.
• Stripes below the last item. After you switched folders or used the filter, the alternating stripes in the empty part of the list could be shifted by one row from some point down, until you resized the window. They now always line up.
• Tidier context menu. The context menu of files and folders is arranged by task. Opening, copying and moving to the other panel, marking, renaming and tags come first; less common commands are in the new Archive, Create and More submenus. With two panels, holding ⌥ turns Copy to and Move to into Copy to Folder … and Move to Folder … for any other destination. A right-click on the empty area offers Sort By and View, as in Finder, and everything for marking. New File is now called New from Template, because a template can also be a whole folder.
• Large folders. Opening a folder with 50,000 items takes about 2 seconds instead of 9, in the list as well as in icon view. Sorting it takes well under a second instead of up to 18 seconds, and the filter responds right away. Scrolling through long lists, Select All and searching large folder trees no longer stall the window. Folder sizes are calculated for several folders at once, about three times as fast.

Fixed: safer copying and moving

The copy and move functions have been thoroughly reviewed. Among the fixes:

• Locked files could not be copied.
• A locked item ended up in two places after being moved to another drive. As in Finder, it now stays where it is.
• A destination folder that contains the source of the job itself is no longer replaced. This also applies when the path goes through a symlink, and to an archive stored in that folder.
• Replace All Older could replace a folder with a newer file of the same name.
• Restore Previous now keeps anything that was added or edited while the dialog was open, as "Name (incomplete)".
• Archive entries that could not be extracted could cause the previous folder to be deleted without asking.
• Hidden "._" files could get lost when moving.
• If a replaced folder could not be deleted completely, for example because of locked files, the rest stayed hidden. It is now kept visibly as "Name (previous)".
• A job could get stuck if a source file was replaced by a special file during copying.
• Files that a cloud service keeps online only without using File Provider, such as kDrive with Lite Sync, were copied as zeros, and moving them to another drive deleted the original. FileWorks now recognises such files with any provider and reports them instead of copying them. For files that really are meant to be empty, the report offers Copy Anyway. This also applies to new files from templates and to items dropped from other apps. If you don't use such a service, or you have added its folder under Settings › Cloud, you can limit the check to your cloud folders on the new Settings › Advanced page. Folders elsewhere are then moved without being searched first.

The first releases were internal only – now, with version 1.2, FileWorks is seeing the light of day. In that sense, listing the new features doesn’t make much sense … practically everything is new – so just take a look at the website and the online manual :-)