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 :-)