Manuel

Cmd is the Mac key. Almost every shortcut also accepts the Windows Control key, because the app listens for both.

1. The window

The window title is the folder name. The menu next to the Apple logo says WizMac Explorer, with About, Hide and Quit under it. The app follows the Mac light or dark theme, and switches live when the system theme changes.

The dark theme keeps its greys apart. The tab on show is a clear step lighter than the others, the address bar and the search box have a field of their own, and the left panel is a step lighter than the file list, as in Finder. The light theme is as it was.

It remembers how you left it. The window size and place, the width of the left panel, the view of each folder (see View modes), and everything in the Options window all come back on the next start.

A broken setting never stops the app. A saved value the app cannot read, after a hand edit for example, is left out, and the app uses the one it starts with. A Quick access list keeps the folders in it and drops the rest.

The open tabs come back too. Quit with three tabs open and the next start opens the same three, in the same order, each with its own view mode and groups, on the tab you were on. A folder that keeps a view of its own shows that one. With several windows, the last one you closed is the one that counts.

• A tab whose folder is gone is left out. With no tab left, the start folder from Options opens.
• A tab on a network disk, another disk or a cloud folder opens a moment after the window, because macOS may ask about it first.
• Options › General can turn it off. The start folder choice then counts again.

Languages, sizes and dates

The app speaks the language of macOS: the first language in System Settings › General › Language & Region that it has. It has English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, each with all its texts. Any other language gives English.

• Each language uses Apple's words for what belongs to macOS (Corbeille, Papierkorb, Impostazioni di Sistema), and the words of the Windows File Explorer for what a file manager does (Accès rapide, Eigenschaften, Acceso directo).
• The Spanish is Spain's; a Mac set to Latin American Spanish gets it too. The Portuguese is Brazil's; a Mac set to the Portuguese of Portugal gets it too.
• A language for this app alone: add it under Applications in Language & Region, as for any Mac app. The change shows at the next start. Options › General names the language, with a button to that page.
• macOS's own windows in the app speak the same language: the Open panels, the Services menu, Hide and Quit, and the buttons of a message box.
• The home folders show the names Finder shows: Bureau and Téléchargements in French, Schreibtisch in German, Scrivania in Italian. A rename and a typed path use the real name, and the filter finds both.
• Counts read right: 1 item, 2 items, never 1 item(s), in each language's own way.
• Sizes and dates follow the region of your Mac: its decimal mark, its thousands mark and its month names. 1.5 KB in the United States, 1,5 KB in France, 1'536 bytes in Switzerland.
• An error says what went wrong in words, after the name of the item: a.txt: Permission denied, No space left on device.

Tabs

• Cmd+T new tab, Cmd+W close tab, or the + button.
• The tab bar is always there, with one tab too, as in Windows 11. Each tab has its ×, on the side the Mac puts it, the left, in both themes. Click it to close that tab. The × of the only tab closes the window, as Cmd+W does.
• Ctrl+Tab next tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab previous tab.
• Drag a tab along the bar to put the tabs in a new order, past the last tab too.
• Drag a tab out to make a new window, as in Windows 11 and the web browsers: drag it up or down out of the tab bar, or sideways out of the window, and let go. A picture of the tab follows the mouse. The tab becomes a window where you let go, the size of the window it came from, with its folder, view, groups, sort, and Back and Forward history, as Duplicate tab gives them. It leaves its old window.
  • Drop it on the tab bar of another window of the app, and it moves there, at the place you let go, and that window comes to the front. A window of another app that lies over a tab bar (a Finder window, say) is on top: let go on it, and the tab becomes a window of its own.
  • The only tab of a window, dropped on another window, puts the window there as a tab: the old window closes, as in Windows. A copy or another job of the old window goes on out of sight, and the window closes when it ends.
  • Esc puts it back, until you let go.
  • A tab on search results comes out on its folder, as Duplicate tab does. The Undo list stays in the old window, and so do its jobs.
• Each tab keeps its own Back and Forward history.
• Cmd+W on the last tab closes the window, like Windows. So do its ×, a middle click on it, and Close tab in its menu.
• Right click a tab for Duplicate tab, Close tab, Close other tabs and Close tabs to the right, as in Windows 11. Each one acts on the tab you clicked, which need not be the one on screen. The duplicate opens next to it, with the same folder, view mode, groups, sort and history.
• Middle click a folder (press the mouse wheel) and it opens in a new tab, behind the one you are in, as Open in new tab does: in the file list, in the search results, in the left panel and on a part of the address bar. On a file it does nothing.
• Middle click a tab to close it. A trackpad has no middle button, so nothing changes there.

Windows

• Cmd+N opens a second window on the same folder.
• Right click a folder → Open in new window.
• Each window is independent: its own tabs, history and undo list. A tab goes from one window to another with a drag (see Tabs).
• Window › Merge All Windows, as in Finder: the tabs of every other window come into the window in front, after its own tabs and in the order the windows were opened, and those windows close. The tab on show stays. It is off while there is no other window.
• Closing a window never cuts a job in two. A copy, a move, a zip, an extract or a delete stops, as with Cancel. An undo always runs to its end. A job that cannot stop at once, on a disk that does not answer for example, finishes first: the window goes out of sight, and closes when the job is done. Quit waits for it the same way.
• A closed window leaves nothing behind. Its lists stop following the disk, and its previews stop. The first window too: closed while a second one stayed open, it only went out of sight, and went on working until the app quit.

2. Moving around

The address bar shows clickable path parts. A long path keeps the last few parts and shows … for the start.

An app is one item, as in Finder. macOS keeps an app as a folder, and some documents too (an .rtfd). A double click or Return on one opens it, in the file list and in the search results, as a file opens; before 1.5.0 it went inside, as into a folder. A middle click opens no tab on it. The address bar and Reveal in Finder still reach the inside, for whoever wants it. A link to an app counts: Safari in Applications is one.

While you type a path it offers the folders that match, upper and lower case alike. Only folders are offered, never files. Typing a ~ gives you your home folder at once.

A pasted path opens, in each form a Mac user copies it: in quotes, as Windows takes it ("/Users/me/My Folder"), from Terminal with a \ before each space (/Users/me/My\ Folder), as a link (file:///Users/me/My%20Folder/), or with spaces or a line break around it. A name that really holds quotes or a \ still opens: a path that is there as typed comes first.

A name opens that item of the folder you are in: Photos opens the folder Photos of this folder, notes.txt that file in its app, ../Music the folder next to this one. A path that starts with / or ~ is read as it is. A path that is not there gets Cannot open, with the text as you typed it.

Drop files on a part of the path, a folder above this one, and they go in there, with the rules of any drop on a folder: the same disk moves, another disk copies, and the drag keys force one or the other. The part lights up under the drag. The small › takes no drop, and the … part is a real folder, so it takes one. Middle click a part to open that folder in a new tab, behind the one you are in, as Windows 11 does.

A tab whose folder is gone moves up. When the folder a tab shows is renamed, moved or deleted, the tab opens the nearest folder that is still there, and the status bar says so, for example: inner is no longer there. Showing v instead. Back never lands on the folder the tab shows already.

• A change made in this app moves the tab at once, in every window.
• A change made in Finder or another app shows at the next Refresh.
• A tab in the back moves when you come back to it.

3. View modes

Five modes, in the toolbar menu or with Cmd+1 … Cmd+5:

1. Details — Name, Size, Kind, Date Modified, and Tags, off to start (see Finder tags). Click a column to sort, or use Sort by. Right click the header to show or hide a column.
2. Extra large icons — 160 px
3. Large icons — 96 px
4. Medium icons — 56 px
5. List — small icons in columns

The Size and Kind columns read as in Finder. Size writes 244.1 KB and 1 byte, as the status bar and Properties do, with the decimal mark of your region. Kind gives macOS's words for the type, the ones Finder shows: PDF document, Plain Text Document, ZIP archive, Application for an app and for a link to one. A shortcut says Shortcut, a folder Folder, in the app's language. The search results use the same words.

Bigger or smaller icons with the mouse wheel. Hold Cmd (or Control) and roll the wheel: each notch moves one step along Details → List → Medium icons → Large icons → Extra large icons. Roll away from you for bigger, as in Windows, whichever way macOS scrolls. A pinch on the trackpad does the same: fingers apart, bigger. It stops at both ends, and it works in the search results too. One flick of the wheel moves one step at a time, not through all five modes at once, even in a big folder.

macOS Zoom can take Control + scroll for itself (System Settings › Accessibility › Zoom). Cmd still works then.

Rules that match Windows:

• Folders sort before files, in both directions. Options can turn that off and mix them.
• Size sorts by real bytes and dates by real time, never by text.
• Items that tie, with the same date or kind, stay in A to Z order. Items of the same size follow the sort's direction by name.
• Columns can be dragged and resized.
• The List view stays still. It lays out its columns again only when the files or the window size change: not when a preview comes in, and not when the scroll bar comes or goes. The icon views do not lay out again for a scroll bar either.

Big folders stay quick. A folder of 20 000 files opens, sorts, filters and changes view in less than half a second; groups take a little longer. The icon views lay out a big folder in steps, so the window keeps answering.

Big jobs in the folder you look at stay quick too. When Delete for good, Empty Trash, a move out, a paste or an Undo changes 2000 files or more of a folder a tab shows, the list does not follow each file: 60 000 files deleted for good stop the window for less than half a second. While the job runs, the tabs keep showing the files they had, in every window. When it ends, each tab reads its folder once, and lands on what the job made, or on what was selected before.

Sort by

View › Sort by, or right click empty space → Sort by, as in Windows: Name, Date Modified, Kind, Size or Tags, then Ascending or Descending. A tick shows the choice.

• It works in every view: Details, the three icon views and List. Before 1.5.0 only a click on a column of Details sorted, so the icon views could not sort at all.
• A new column sorts from A to Z, the smallest or the oldest first, as a click on its header does. Descending turns it round.
• A click on a column of Details does the same thing, and the ticks follow it, in both menus.
• The folder keeps the sort, as it keeps a click on a column (see Each folder keeps its view).
• In the search results it sorts the results. They came in the order the search found them, with no tick: a pick there saves nothing, and Esc brings back the folder's own sort.
• In a Trash it also lists Original Location and Date Deleted, after Name, as Windows does in its Recycle Bin (see Trash).

Each folder keeps its view

As in Windows (Folder Options › Remember each folder's view settings): pick a view mode, groups or a sort (a click on a column) in a folder, or drag the edge of a Details column. That folder keeps them. Open it again, in any tab or window, or after a restart: they come back. A folder you never set opens with the default view. Before 1.2.0 the view went along with the tab to the next folder.

• A folder keeps its view mode, its groups, the column it sorts on and the direction, the widths of the Details columns, and the columns on show.
• Only a change you make is kept: a pick in the view menu, Cmd+1 … Cmd+5, Cmd + wheel or a pinch, Group by, Sort by, a click on a column, a drag of a column's edge, a column shown or hidden. Opening a folder keeps nothing.
• The search results keep their own view: the tab's, as the search began. No folder keeps a change made there, and Esc brings back the folder's own view.
• A folder you rename or move in the app keeps its view, and so does every folder inside it, also after an Undo or a Redo.
• The tabs that come back at start keep their view mode and groups; a folder's own view wins.
• The default view, at the first start of 1.2.0, is the one 1.1.0 gave every new tab, so nothing moves at the update.
• The last 1000 folders keep their view. The one used longest ago goes first.
• View › Apply to All Folders asks Make every folder look like this one? Yes: this folder's view becomes the default, and every folder forgets its own. View › Reset All Folders asks Put every folder back to the default view? Yes: every folder forgets its own view, and the default is Details, no groups, Name from A to Z. There is no Undo, so both ask with No as the default button. Options › Folders has the same two buttons.
• Options › Folders › Remember each folder's view turns it off. A tab then takes its view along to the next folder, as before 1.2.0. The views the folders keep stay kept meanwhile, and come back when you turn it on.

Previews

The icon views show real previews for photos, PDF, video, Office, Pages, Numbers and Keynote files. Images are read directly. Everything else asks macOS Quick Look, the same source Finder uses, from inside the app, so nothing flashes in the Dock.

• Previews are 256 px, so they stay sharp in Extra large icons.
• Apps and disk images keep their normal icon on purpose: Quick Look is slow on them, and the normal icon is already the right picture.
• Only the files on screen get a preview made. A folder of thousands of photos or PDFs keeps the Mac quiet: the others wait until you scroll to them.
• The last 600 previews are kept in memory. Older ones are dropped, and made again when you come back to them.
• Turn previews off in Options › General.

Hovering any file shows its full name and the folder it sits in, which helps when a long name is cut short. A cell of Kind, Size or Date Modified that is cut short shows its whole text the same way, only where it is cut.

Group by

View › Group by, or right click empty space → Group by: None, Date modified, Kind or Size. Each group gets a title with its count, like Today (3), and a thin line, as in Windows.

• The groups keep their order. A click on a column sorts inside each group.
• The week starts on the day your Mac's region says.
• Every view shows them. Details puts a title above the first row of a group. The icon views and List give each title a place of its own: in the icon views it fills a line, and each group starts on a new line; in List it sits between the names. A title is not a file: you cannot select it or open it, the arrow keys step over it, and Select All and the status line count files only.
• The choice belongs to the folder, as the view mode does (see Each folder keeps its view). With that option off it belongs to the tab, and a new tab starts with the last one you chose.
• Search results are not grouped.

Folder sizes

The Size column shows the size of each folder, not --. Neither Finder nor Windows does this in the list.

• It is counted in the background. A folder shows … until its number is in. The window never waits for it.
• It counts the bytes of every file inside, on the same disk.
• Sorting by Size puts folders in their real order once the numbers are in.
• A copy, move, delete, zip, extract, restore or undo counts the folders it touched again. Refresh (F5) counts everything again.
• Left blank on purpose: a whole disk, any folder on a network disk or on another disk, a cloud folder, a link, your home folder, /Users, and anything in the hidden Library folder. macOS guards much of the Library (contacts, calendars, other apps' data) and would ask you about it. Properties still counts any folder.
• Turn it off in Options › Folders.

Long names keep their type

A name too long for its place is cut, and the cut shows …. The … comes before the type, and the type stays: Annual report for th…zip, where 1.4.0 showed Annual report for the fin…. Windows cuts at the end; Finder cuts in the middle and keeps the end. This form is close to Finder's.

• In every view: the Name column of Details, List, the three icon views, and the search results. In the icon views the name wraps onto its lines, and only the last line that shows is cut: it ends with the type.
• The type is the part after the last dot: 1 to 8 letters or digits, with a part before it. .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 and .tar.xz count whole.
• A folder has no type, whatever its name, and is cut at the end. An app or another package keeps its type.
• A name with no type (README, .zshrc), or a type wider than the room, is cut at the end.
• The cut never splits a letter from its accent, an emoji of several parts, or a flag.
• When a cloud mark shows at the right of the name, the cut leaves room for it, so the mark never hides the type. In List, the widest name of a column is no longer cut for a mark that comes after it.
• The name editor (F2), the tooltip, a drag and Copy as Path keep the whole name.
• Options › Folders › Keep the type when a long name is cut turns it off: the cut is at the end, as in 1.4.0.

Finder tags

As in Finder: an item with colour tags shows small coloured dots after its name, in every view and in the search results. They are Finder's own tags, so what Finder sets shows here, and what the app sets shows in Finder, in Spotlight and in every app that reads them.

• One dot per colour tag, the last three, the last one on top: Finder's seven colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray). A tag with no colour makes no dot, as in Finder: it shows in the Tags column.
• In Details and List the dots follow the name, and a long name leaves them room, its type kept. In the icon views the dots sit at the lower right of the picture.
• The Tags column in Details names the tags: Red, Project X. It is off to start. Right click the header of Details for the list of its columns, with a tick on those that show, as in Windows: click one to show or hide it. The Name always shows. The folder keeps the choice, with its view.
• A click on Tags sorts by the tags' names, the tagged items first, in both directions, as folders come first. Sort by lists Tags too.
• A tag set in Finder shows within 8 seconds on a row on screen, or at once after Refresh (F5). A tag set in the app shows at once, in every window.
• Set them with the right click menu, Tags › (see Right click menus). Search them with tag: in the search box (see Search), or click one in the Tags part of the left panel.

4. The left panel

The left panel holds these sections, top to bottom to start with: Recents, Quick access, This Mac, Locations, Tags, and the Trash at the end. You choose which of them show, in what order, and which ones stay on show while the others scroll: see Choosing, ordering and pinning the sections.

A middle click opens a folder in a new tab, behind the current one: a Quick access row, a disk, a folder, a Locations row or the Trash. The tree stays on the folder of the tab you are in.

Recents

The files you changed last, newest first, under a caption for each day: Today, Yesterday, Earlier this week, Last week, and so on, as the file list groups by date. It lists the last 10 files of your home folder, or as many as you choose in Options › Left panel (from 1 to 50).

• A click shows the file's folder in the tab, with the file selected. It does not open the file. Back returns to the folder the tab left.
• Point at a row for the file's place and date. Right click it for Open, Open with, Reveal in Finder and Copy as Path. A Recents row never offers Rename, Cut or Delete.
• The list comes from Spotlight, and no file is opened to make it: macOS asks before an app may read Desktop, Documents or Downloads, and the list must not raise that question at start. The picture of a row is the one of its type.
• Left out: anything in ~/Library, anything under a name that starts with a dot, folders, apps, and a file that sits straight in your home folder.
• The list is asked at start, by Refresh (F5) and when a copy, a move, a delete or an undo ends. It follows the files other apps write too, a download for one: a new file in a folder you have open shows within a few seconds, and the list looks again when the window comes to the front, and every 5 seconds while it stays there. The window never waits for it. A Mac whose Spotlight has no index shows No recent files.

Quick access

Your own shortcut list. It starts with Home, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Movies and Applications.

• Right click any folder → Add to Quick access.
• Right click a Quick access row → Remove from Quick access.
• The list is saved, and comes back next time you open the app.
• Quick access rows never offer Rename, Cut or Delete, so tidying your shortcuts can never damage a real folder.
• A row made for an app before 1.5.0 (the menu no longer adds one) opens the app on a click, as Finder's sidebar does, and a middle click opens no tab inside it. Remove from Quick access still works.

This Mac

Your disks. Macintosh HD opens into a folder tree that shows folders only, like the Windows navigation pane, and never an app or another package (an .rtfd): one item, as in Finder's sidebar. A link to a folder is a folder here, as in the file list: tmp, var and etc of Macintosh HD are links, and show when you show hidden files. The tree follows the main pane: open a folder anywhere, and the tree opens down to it and highlights it.

Each disk shows how full it is: a thin bar under its name, as in Windows. It turns red when less than a tenth of the disk is free. Point at the disk for the numbers, like 32.4 GB free of 460.4 GB. A network disk has no bar. The numbers are read in the background, so the window opens as fast as before. A copy, a move or a delete reads them again when it ends, and so does Refresh.

Eject a disk: right click it → Eject, for a USB stick, an external disk or a disk image, as in Windows. Macintosh HD has no Eject. A network disk offers Disconnect instead, here and in Locations. A cloud folder offers neither.

• Eject takes out every volume of the disk, as in Windows. It runs in the background: the status bar says Ejecting USB…, then USB was ejected.
• A tab on a folder of the disk opens the nearest folder that is still there, and says so.
• When another app uses the disk, the disk stays, and one message names the app: USB was not ejected: Preview is using it. Quit Preview, then try again.
• While a copy, a move, a zip, a delete or an undo of the app still uses the disk, Eject waits until it is done.
• The app never keeps a disk busy itself: a tab open on it, its previews and the left panel let it go.

A disk is not a folder, wherever it shows: in This Mac, in the file list of /Volumes, in the folder tree. Its menu has no Cut, Copy, Rename, New Folder here, Compress, Move to Trash or Delete permanently, as in Windows and Finder. A key or a drag that would move, rename or delete it says why instead, and changes nothing. A copy of a disk into a folder still works: it takes nothing away.

The tree keeps the folders you opened, and only those. It is built again after a change in Options, and when the Locations list arrives a moment after start; it then opens the same folders again.

Desktop, Documents, Downloads and Library are read only when you open them, or when the main pane opens a folder inside one. macOS asks once before an app may read them. Until you open them, their rows show an arrow without being read.

* opens the selected row, and only that row, like + and the right arrow. In Windows it opens every folder below as well. Here each folder is read on the window's own thread, so that would freeze the window on a whole disk.

A drag that waits on a closed folder opens it, that folder only, so you go down one level at a time and drop deeper. Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Library, other disks and network or cloud folders open this way only once the tree has read them: a macOS question in the middle of a drag is the worst moment for one. You can still drop on them.

Locations

Network disks and cloud folders, found automatically:

• anything mounted that is not a local disk;
• Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox folders;
• iCloud Drive.

Several accounts of the same service are listed separately, with the account name, for example Google Drive - you@example.com.

Right click a network disk → Disconnect takes it off this Mac, the way Eject takes a disk. A cloud folder has no Disconnect: it is a folder of this Mac.

The list is looked up in the background, so the window opens at once even when a network share is slow to answer. A network row is never read until you open it: macOS asks before an app may read a network disk, and that question used to arrive while the window was still being built.

Tags

Finder's tags, under Locations, as in Finder: the seven colours (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Gray), then the tags the app has met. A tag is met when a row the app shows carries it, in any folder, or when you set it with Tags ›. The part keeps the last 20, the one met longest ago going first; it is saved and comes back next time.

• A click on a tag searches the home folder for it, in the tab you are in, as a search of the box does: the tab goes to Home, the box reads tag:Red (tag:"Project X" when the name has a space), and the items with that tag come as results. Esc leaves them. Back returns to the folder you left. ~/Library stays out of it.
• The colour of a tag is a round before its name; a tag with no colour is a ring, as in Finder.
• A tag met later, in this window or another, comes into the part by itself.
• The part folds like the others. Its rows take no drop, no middle click and have no right click menu: to tag a file, use Tags › on it.

Choosing, ordering and pinning the sections

Which sections show. Options › Left panel has a box for Recents, Quick access, Locations and Tags, all on to start with. This Mac and the Trash always show. Locations shows only while your Mac has a network disk or a cloud folder to list. The right click menu on a section's name has Hide this section too; the box brings it back.

Order. Drag a section's name up or down. A line shows where it will land between two sections; let go to drop it. The right click menu on a name has Move up and Move down as well. The Trash always stays last. The order is saved, and every window follows at once.

The pin. Beside each section's name sits a pin, which shows when the mouse is on the name. Click it, and that section and every section above it stay on show, in a top part of the panel that is as tall as its rows and does not scroll. The sections below it, and the Trash, stay in the part under it, which scrolls. A line separates the two parts.

• There is one pin. Pin another section and it moves; click the pin of the pinned section, or use Unpin in its menu, and the panel is one list again. A section kept on show by a pin below it shows a grey pin.
• The top part never takes more than its share of the panel, 60 % to start with. Change it in Options › Left panel, in Pinned part, at most (from 20 to 90 %). It is still only as tall as its rows when they take less. A long one scrolls by itself, so the part below keeps room for the Trash.
• Move a section and its pin goes with it.
• Restore Defaults in Options shows every section, puts them back in their order and takes the pin off.

Trash

Clicking it opens the Trash, and the Trash row stays highlighted. Its own right click menu holds only Empty Trash; the items inside it offer Restore.

macOS keeps one Trash per disk. A file deleted on an external disk goes there, not into your home Trash. Each of those gets its own row under Trash, named Trash on <disk>. Empty Trash empties them all, and the question names the total count.

A Trash folder met in a list is the Trash, not an item of it: .Trash in your home folder with hidden files on, or a disk's .Trashes/<your number>. It has the menu of the Trash, Open and Empty Trash. Delete, Backspace, Shift+Delete, Cmd+X, F2 and a drag with the move key change nothing, and say why: The Trash cannot be moved, renamed or deleted. Use "Empty Trash" to clear it. Before, its menu offered Restore, which finds nothing, and Delete permanently, which erased the whole Trash, folder and all.

Two more columns in a Trash, as in Windows' Recycle Bin: in the home Trash and in the Trash of a disk, Details shows Original Location, the folder each item came from, and Date Deleted, right after the name.

• Original Location comes from the app's own note for what it trashed (see Restore), else from Finder's note for what Finder trashed, else the cell stays empty (an item another app put there). A long place is cut in the middle, as Finder cuts a path, so its last folder shows. Point at it for the whole place.
• Date Deleted is the time of the app's note, else the date macOS noted when the item came into the Trash, Finder's Date Added.
• A click on either one sorts by it, and Sort by lists both after Name while a Trash is on show. The Trash keeps its sort and the widths of all seven columns, as any folder keeps its view.
• A folder inside the Trash, and any other folder, has the five columns of always.
• They follow the app's jobs: an item you delete, in any window, shows where it came from in a Trash that is open.

macOS guards the Trash. If the list looks empty when you know it is not, give the app Full Disk Access in System Settings › Privacy & Security. After an update you must give that permission again.

A folder the app cannot read never looks empty: a yellow bar above the list says This app cannot read this folder, and its link opens the right page of System Settings. The bar shows for any unreadable folder, not only the Trash.

5. Cloud files

A file that lives online and is not downloaded shows a small cloud next to its name, like Finder. The check uses the real macOS flag, so it matches what Finder shows.

Open such a file and the cloud disappears by itself once the download finishes. While a network folder is open, the list quietly checks again every few seconds. On a normal folder that timer does not run.

Download now and Remove download

As in Finder, and as OneDrive in Windows (Always keep on this device, Free up space). Right click an item in a cloud folder: iCloud Drive, or a folder of Google Drive or OneDrive.

• Download now shows for a file with the cloud mark, and for any folder. macOS downloads it, a folder with all it holds, and the cloud mark goes once it is here. The status bar says Downloading 3 items…. There is no progress window: macOS does the work.
• Remove download shows for a downloaded file, and for any folder. The copy on this Mac goes, the item stays in the cloud, and it gets the cloud mark. No question, as in Finder: nothing is lost, and Download now brings it back.
• It never loses a file. An item the cloud has not uploaded yet keeps its copy: it is left out, and a message names it.
• The menu opens at once: the app never walks a folder to know what it holds, so a folder offers both.
• A cloud may take its time to answer. The window never waits with it, and the status bar says Removing the download of 1 item… until then.
• Neither item for the cloud folder itself, for a disk, or in the Trash. Not an Undo step, as in Windows and Finder.

6. Working with files

Selecting

The selection survives a change of view mode, and a Refresh: the same rows stay picked and the list stays where it was. After Undo or Redo the list lands on what the job left behind, so you can see what changed.

Copy, cut, paste

• Cmd+C, Cmd+X, Cmd+V, or the Control versions.
• Right click a folder → Paste into folder pastes without opening it.
• What a paste, a drop or a move brings is selected, as in Windows, once the list shows it (a moment after a big one). The selection that was there goes. A drop on a sub folder, or a paste into one, leaves the selection alone: what it brought is not in this list. If you pick something else first, the list keeps your pick.
• Copying puts the file paths on the system clipboard as file URLs. Other apps that read file URLs can use them. Pasting into Finder itself is not tested.
• Finder tags travel with the file. Colour labels, tags, "Where from" and the other hidden marks are copied too, on the same disk and across disks.

Copying and moving show a progress window counted in bytes, so one big file still moves the bar. Big files are copied in 1 MB pieces. The label names the file it is on, and reads 42.1 MB of 1.2 GB. Moving inside the same disk is instant: it renames instead of copying.

The window opens at once and says Preparing… while the files are counted. The count runs in the background, so a folder holding a hundred thousand files never freezes the app. Cancel stops the job and removes the half written file it was on, so no part copy is left behind. A cancelled move keeps the original.

• A file is copied under a hidden name next to its target, and gets its real name only when it is whole. So a copy never writes through a link at the target, and a half file never shows under the real name.
• A pipe, a socket or a device is skipped, and the message at the end names it: reading one would wait for ever. A move to another disk leaves a folder that holds one where it is.
• A move that cannot take the file out of its folder, a folder you may not change for example, leaves it where it was, and says why. A move to another disk copies first; when the original then cannot go, the copy goes again.
• After that copy, a move to another disk removes only what it copied, and only what did not change since. A file that arrived or changed in the meantime stays where it was, and the message names it. A single file that changed while it was copied is not moved. Finder's .DS_Store goes with its folder anyway.

When a name already exists

One question appears, with four answers:

• Replace — overwrite;
• Keep both — the new one becomes report (2).txt;
• Skip — leave it alone;
• Cancel — stop the whole job.

The question is Windows' Replace or Skip Files. Return is Replace, and Esc is Cancel.

One clash shows both items side by side, as Windows' Compare info for both files: the one you copy or move on the left, the one already there on the right, each with its icon, its name, its size and its date modified. The newer one says (newer) and the larger one (larger); two files of the same size, changed in the same second, say Same size and date. A folder shows its date only, no size. A long name is cut in the middle, so its type stays; point at it for the whole path.

Several clashes show their names, the same buttons, which answer for all of them, and one more: Decide for each file…, as Windows' Let me decide for each file. It opens a list, one row per clash, in two columns: Files you copy (or Files you move) and Files already there. Each side has a tick, its icon, name, size and date.

• Tick both to keep both: the one you copy gets a number, report (2).txt.
• Tick only the one you copy to replace the one there.
• Tick only the one already there to skip.
• A click anywhere on a side ticks it, or clears it; Space does the same on the row you are on.
• The tick at the head of a column ticks the whole column; once every row has it, a click clears them all.
• Skip files with the same date and size, as in Windows: those rows keep only the one already there. Clear it, and they get their ticks back.
• Nothing is ticked at first, and Continue stays off while a row has no tick. Cancel stops the whole job.
• An item that took one of the names while the question was open, and so was never asked about, is kept: the new one gets a number.

Pasting into the folder a file already sits in makes report - Copy.txt, like Windows, and asks nothing: a file does not clash with itself. Other files pasted in the same job are still asked about.

Nothing in one paste replaces anything else in the same paste. Two files of the same name, from search results for example, both arrive: the second one becomes report (2).txt, with no question. With Replace, the first one replaces the old file and the next ones get a number.

Two pastes at once never take the same name. Paste twice, fast, and you get two copies: the second one is report (2).txt, or report - Copy (2).txt in the folder the file sits in. No question is asked for it.

A file that another job still uses is never replaced. That is a file the job is writing, even before it shows in the folder, and a file it still has to copy, move, zip, extract or delete. A running Undo counts as a job too. The new file gets a number instead, with no question.

Replace keeps what you paste safe:

• It never removes a folder that holds what you move: d cannot replace the folder it is in. A copy with Replace onto a folder of the same name adds the files to that folder, as before.
• It replaces a link, never the file the link points to. When the target is the very file you copy, nothing happens, and the message says so.
• A move with Replace removes the old item only once the new one is in place. Cancel during a Replace keeps the old file.
• A move with Replace onto a folder puts the old folder in the Trash, whole, before the new one takes its name: the files the new folder does not bring are not lost. Restore puts it back where it was, as d (2) next to the new one. A copy adds the files to it instead. When the old folder cannot go to the Trash (a locked one), the move says so and changes nothing. A move that fails, or Cancel, brings the old folder back out. Before, the old folder was erased with all it held.

Cutting and pasting in the same folder does nothing, and the cut stays armed. The next paste, in another folder, still moves the files. A cut is only spent by a paste that really had something to move.

Drag and drop

• Drag inside the app, or to and from Finder.
• A folder dragged or pasted from Finder keeps its own name. macOS ends the link of a folder with a /, and the app takes it off.
• Same disk → move. Different disk → copy.
• Hold Cmd to force a copy, Control to force a move. Options can change both keys.
• Dropping on a folder puts the files inside it.
• Dropping on an app opens the files with it, as in Finder and Windows, all in one go; nothing goes inside the app. Before 1.5.0 they were copied or moved into it, which can keep macOS from opening it. A drop on another package, a document macOS keeps as a folder (an .rtfd), goes to the folder on show. The same holds for a part of the address bar and a Quick access row.
• A move onto the folder the files already sit in does nothing.
• You can drop on a folder in the left tree. The row lights up, and a closed folder opens if you wait on it for a moment, that folder only. A folder macOS guards opens this way only once the tree has read it (see The left panel).
• Or drop on a part of the address bar, a folder above this one. The part lights up (see Moving around).
• The tree refuses a drop on a section title and on the Trash.

Rename

• F2, or right click → Rename. In the file list you type over the name in place.
• Clicking the file that is already selected also opens the name editor — the Windows habit. One row selected, one more click on its name, and you can type. It waits one double click interval first, so a real double click still opens the file. A drag, a held key, a right click, the click that only closes an open menu, and a key that moves to another file before the wait ends all leave the name alone.
• In the left tree, and in search results, a small dialog asks for the new name instead.
• A name is refused with a message box that says why, in the list and in the dialog alike, when it:
  • contains /,
  • is . or ..,
  • holds a NUL character, which a paste can bring in,
  • is longer than the Mac disk takes: 255 letters, where an emoji counts two, and so does a letter whose accent is typed as a mark of its own,
  • is already taken.
• A rename never replaces another file, and never fails in silence. The renamed file moves to its place in the sorted list at once.
• All of this holds on a USB stick or an SD card made for Windows (exFAT) too, and so do a rename of several, Restore from its Trash and the shortcuts made on it.
• A rename that only changes the letter case (readme.txt → README.txt), or the way an accent is stored (é as one character, or as e plus an accent), is allowed: the Mac disk sees one file there, not two. The list shows every name with é as one character, so a rename in the list that changes only that keeps the name as it is shown.
• Several at once. Select several items and press F2, or right click → Rename, as in Windows. Type a name and press Return: every selected item takes it, with a number, in the order the list shows them: Trip (1).jpg, Trip (2).jpg, Trip (3).png. Esc changes nothing.
  • Each file keeps its own extension. A folder gets the name and its number. An app keeps its own: Trip (4).app.
  • Nothing is ever replaced. A number whose name another item has is skipped, and the count goes on: with a Trip (2).jpg beside them, three photos become Trip (1).jpg, Trip (3).jpg and Trip (4).jpg.
  • An item that has such a name already keeps it, so a second F2 with the same name changes nothing.
  • A name too long for the Mac disk stops the whole rename, and the message says why. An item that a running copy still uses, or that the disk refuses, keeps its name, and one message names it.
  • One Undo puts every name back. 2000 files take their names in a fraction of a second.
  • In search results the Rename dialog asks once, and each item stays in its own folder. The left panel renames one row, as before.

New things

Right click empty space → New ›, or File › New ›: the same list.

• Folder — Cmd+Shift+N too.
• Text Document.
• The documents the apps on this Mac make, as in Windows, where Microsoft Word Document shows only with Office (the table below).
• The files of the Templates folder, by name, as Windows' Templates folder: put a file there, and a new item is a copy of it. The first 30 by name show; hidden files and plain folders stay out, a package counts as a file, and a link gives a copy of its file.
• Open Templates folder opens it in a new tab, and makes it the first time: ~/Library/Application Support/wizmac-explorer/Templates.
• Right click a folder → New Folder here.

No Word, no Word document. macOS keeps no list of what each app makes, so the app carries its own, and asks macOS which of those apps are on this Mac each time the menu opens: an app installed meanwhile shows at once.

A new document is a whole file of its type, empty, that its app opens: Pages opens the .docx, Numbers the .xlsx, Keynote the .pptx, and Quick Look shows them, the OpenDocument sheet and slides aside (macOS has no Quick Look for those). No page size or font is set: the app puts its own. The Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents come from those apps in version 14.5: an older version may refuse them. A new document has the date of now.

The name asked is Windows' (New Microsoft Word Document.docx), selected up to its type, so a name typed at once keeps the .docx. The same goes for a text document and a template. The new item always lands in the folder it was asked for, and it is selected in the list once it shows, when that folder is the one on show. Its name follows the rules of a rename: a name with a / in it, like ../notes or a full path, is refused with a message, and so are ., .., a NUL and a name that is too long. Nothing is made then. A name that is taken gets a number: New folder (2), New Microsoft Word Document (2).docx. A new document is a copy, so it never replaces a file. A template taken out of the folder once the menu showed says Invoice.xlsx is no longer there., and makes nothing.

Shortcuts to files and folders

Right click a file or a folder → Create shortcut, as in Windows. A shortcut appears next to it, named Report.pdf - Shortcut, and is selected. File › Create Shortcut does the same for the selection. It works in the file list and in the search results, never inside the Trash.

• A shortcut is a macOS alias. Finder shows it with its small arrow, its Kind is Alias there, and Show Original finds the item, also after the item moved. Aliases made by Finder work in the app the same way.
• A shortcut shows the picture of its item with the small arrow, as in Windows: the page of the file's type, a folder in your folder colour, an app's or a disk's own icon. The same in the file list, the search results, Properties and the delete question. Other apps show the shortcuts the app makes as a blank page, since macOS keeps no picture in them. The picture comes from the shortcut alone: an app in a folder macOS guards, or on another disk, shows the icon of apps, and a disk that is not connected shows a folder.
• Double click a shortcut, or press Return: to a folder, the tab goes there, as in Windows; to a file, the file opens in its app, and a .zip extracts, as always. The same goes for a shortcut in the search results, and for its path typed in the address bar.
• When the item is gone: The item this shortcut points to is no longer there. When it is on a disk that is not connected: The item is on a disk that is not connected: USB. The app never connects a disk, and never shows a macOS window, while it looks for the item.
• Several items selected: one shortcut each, and one Undo takes them all. 2000 shortcuts take about a second.
• A name that is taken gets a number on the whole name: Report.pdf - Shortcut (2). So does a name that a running copy is about to write. A name too long for the Mac disk is cut short.
• A folder the app may not change, like /Volumes where the disks sit, or /Applications for a user who is not an admin: the app asks A shortcut cannot go here. Put it on the Desktop instead?, as Windows does. Yes puts it on the Desktop, No makes none. A disk always asks: its folder is no place for a shortcut.
• The Kind column says Shortcut, in the file list and in the search results.
• Properties of a shortcut shows Points to: the place of the item it points to, as Windows shows its Target.

Paste shortcut, as in the classic Windows menu: after Copy or Cut, here or in Finder, right click empty space or a folder → Paste shortcut. A shortcut to each item on the clipboard goes there, with the names and the Desktop question above. The clipboard stays as it is, and a Cut stays armed: the next Paste still moves the files.

• The item shows only while the clipboard holds links. A web link is one too: then nothing is made, and the status bar says The clipboard holds no files.
• A menu only looks at what kind of data the clipboard holds, never at the data itself; only a paste you ask for reads it.

Delete

The "delete for good" question shows the file's own preview, so you can see what you are about to lose. Cancel is the default button. The files are then removed in the background, with a progress window that counts items and has a Cancel button, so a folder holding thousands of files never freezes the app, also while you look at it (see Big jobs in View modes). Empty Trash asks the same way and shows the same window.

A disk is never deleted, nor moved to the Trash: that would take every file on it. The keys say so, and its menu offers Eject instead. The same goes for a Trash folder itself, whose menu offers Empty Trash.

A file already in the Trash is not offered "Move to Trash". It is offered Restore, Restore to… and Delete permanently. The Trash itself offers Empty Trash.

In a Trash, Delete and Backspace delete for good, as in Windows' Recycle Bin: they ask the question of Shift+Delete, with Cancel as the default button. So does Edit › Move to Trash. Before, they asked macOS to put the item in the Trash again: it took a new name there, the note of where it came from was lost, and Restore then moved it inside the Trash.

Items in a Trash and items outside it, selected together in the search results, offer neither Restore nor Move to Trash. The keys say why: Some of these items are in the Trash already. Select only the others to move them to the Trash. Delete permanently and Shift+Delete take them all.

Move to Trash takes each item on its own. When one cannot go, a locked file for example, the others still go, and Undo brings them back. One message names the items that stayed.

The Trash renames an item whose name it already holds: report 2.txt. The app asks macOS where each item went, so Undo brings back the very file you deleted, even when the Trash holds another one of the same name.

Restore

Right click an item inside any Trash, your home one or one on another disk → Restore puts it back where it came from, for the items this app trashed, Undo included, and for the items Finder trashed, as in Windows. The app writes its own note of each item it trashes; for Finder's items it reads Finder's own note, which Finder keeps in the Trash's private .DS_Store. The app only reads that file, never writes it. When a new macOS changes its form, Finder's items lose their place (Restore to… still works), and nothing else breaks. Before 1.5.0 Restore worked for the app's own items only.

• Each item that goes into the Trash gets a new note, so an old note of another item with the same name never sends it to the wrong folder. A note also knows which item it is about, and counts only while that item is at its place: if it left the Trash in Finder (Put Back, Empty Trash) and another item came to the same name, Restore does not use the old note for the new item. A name with accents, like café.txt, finds its note too.
• Restore to… asks for a folder. Use it for anything another app trashed, where no note exists.
• A name already in use is never overwritten: the item comes back as name (2).txt. A name that a copy or a move in progress is about to write counts as in use too.
• Restoring is a move, so Cmd+Z puts it straight back in the Trash, and Restore still works afterwards.
• The last 500 notes are kept. Notes for items that left the Trash are dropped on the next delete.

Compress

Right click anything → Compress to .zip. The zip lands next to the files, with a byte progress window. The new zip is selected when it is done, and it can be undone.

• The name carries the date and time, as Reports_20260921_143005.zip. Several items together make Archive_20260921_143005.zip. Zipping the same folder twice therefore never touches the earlier zip. Twice in the same second, the second zip gets (2).
• Each file keeps its own date and its Unix permissions inside the zip.
• A sub folder with nothing in it is stored too, so the tree comes back whole.
• Two items of the same name, from search results for example, both go in: the second one as report (2).txt.
• A link goes in as what it points to, like Windows does: a copy of the file, or the folder with all it holds. A link that leads nowhere, or back into a folder it is in (a link to .., say), stays out.
• A pipe, a socket or a device stays out: reading one would wait for ever. So does a folder the app cannot read. The message at the end names each item that stayed out.
• Cancel stops the job at once, also while it counts the files, and removes the half zip.
• A zip that cannot be made, in a folder you may not change for example, leaves no file and offers no Undo. Neither does a zip that nothing could go into.
• A file that took the zip's name while the job counted is never written over.

Extract

Double click a .zip — it opens the way a folder does in Windows: the files come out here. Right click → Extract here does the same. The macOS Archive Utility is never used, so the work shows its own progress inside the app and Undo knows about the folder it made.

The files land in a new folder next to the zip, named after it, with a progress window and a Cancel button. Cancel removes the half folder, and the zip itself is never touched.

• A name clash gets (2), also with an extract of the same zip that still runs, so nothing is overwritten. The job never goes into a folder that took its name in the meantime.
• One zip at a time. The new folder is selected, and it can be undone.
• Names come back as they went in. A Mac name may hold \ and :, like back\slash.txt or a:b.txt. Only in a zip made on Windows does a \ divide folders, and a name that starts with a drive (C:) is skipped.
• A file whose data is damaged in the zip is reported, and leaves no empty or broken file behind. The other files still come out.
• A file never writes over another file of the same name from the same zip: the second one is reported. So is a folder of the zip that a file of it took the name of, or whose name is too long: it is named in the message, and the other files still come out.
• A link stored in the zip (the macOS Archive Utility stores links) comes out as a small file that holds the path it pointed to. The app never makes a link from a zip, so nothing in it can point outside the folder.
• An extract that cannot make its folder, in a folder you may not change for example, says so and offers no Undo.
• Each file comes out with the date the zip stored, not with today's date.
• Files keep the permissions the zip stored, except the setuid and setgid bits, which are always dropped. A zip made on Windows carries no permissions, so those files keep the normal ones.
• Entries that try to escape the folder, such as ../../etc/passwd, are skipped and reported.

7. Undo and redo

Cmd+Z undoes, Cmd+Y (or Cmd+Shift+Z) redoes. It works for copy, move, rename, new folder, new text file, new document, zip, extract, shortcuts, tags, restore and delete.

• Undoing a delete takes the file back out of the Trash: the very item it put there, also when the Trash holds others of the same name. If the Trash was emptied in between, Undo says so, even when another item of that name went into the Trash since.
• Undoing a copy removes the copies and keeps the originals.
• Undoing a new document (a type or a template of New ›) puts it in the Trash, as the copy it is: Undo New New Microsoft Word Document.docx. Redo makes it again from the blank, or from the template.
• Undoing a new thing, a zip or an extract puts it in the Trash. Redo takes that same item back out, so a zip comes back whole and not empty. If the Trash was emptied in between, Redo says so instead, even when another item of the same name is in the Trash by then.
• Undo and Redo never touch another item that took the name in between. When the name is taken, the item comes back as report (2).txt, and the next Redo or Undo starts from there. A copy that Redo makes again never writes over a file of the same name: it gets a number too.
• Undo of a rename that only changed the letter case, or the way an accent is stored, gives the old name back: README.txt becomes readme.txt again, not readme (2).txt.
• A rename of several items at once is one step: Undo Rename of 3 items puts every name back, and Redo gives them again.
• The shortcuts of one Create shortcut or Paste shortcut are one step too: Undo Shortcuts to 3 items puts them all in the Trash, and Redo takes those same items back out. A shortcut you had deleted in between is made again, to the same item.
• A change of tags is one step, the Tags menu's or Edit Tags': Undo Tags of 3 items gives every item the tags it had, and Redo the tags of the change. An item that went in between is named in the message.
• When Undo or Redo cannot handle an item, the message says so, and the next Redo or Undo leaves that item's name alone.
• The Edit menu names the job, for example Undo Move of 3 items, or Undo Move of report.pdf for one item.
• The last 25 jobs are remembered. A new job clears the redo trail.
• The work runs in the background. A busy window appears when it takes more than half a second, and Undo and Redo wait until it is done, even when another job ends in the meantime.
• Each window has its own list.

8. Search

Two kinds, one box. Its hint names the folder: Search Downloads. The box grows a little when a home folder's name needs it in your language, so Rechercher dans Téléchargements shows whole.

Filter this folder — just type. The list narrows as you type. Instant.

Search every folder below — type, then press Return.

• Results show Name, Size, Kind, Date Modified and In Folder.
• Results work in every view mode, icons included, with previews.
• The results come in the order the search finds them, with no sort arrow, as in Windows. Click a column to sort them: the arrow shows, and the results found after the click take their place in that order too.
• A search of your home folder, or of a folder above it, leaves ~/Library out, as Finder and Windows do. It holds the files of other apps, which hid your own. A search that starts inside ~/Library searches it.
• Double click a result to open it, or a folder to go there.
• Everything you can do to a file works on a result: copy, zip, delete, Properties, Reveal in Finder.
• The results follow what the app does, in every tab and every window. A renamed file shows its new name at once. A file deleted or moved away, by a job or by an Undo, leaves the list. So a command on a row never reaches another file that took an old name. A change made by another app shows at the next search.
• Esc leaves the results and brings the folder back.
• It stops at 5000 hits and skips system folders, so it cannot run away.

It asks Spotlight first, the same index Finder uses, so a search of your whole home folder answers in about a second instead of minutes. It walks the folders itself when Spotlight cannot help: with Show Hidden Files on (Spotlight leaves hidden files out of its index), in a folder Spotlight does not index, or when mdfind is missing. The results are the same either way: with hidden files off, Spotlight's hits leave out an item Finder's Hidden flag hides, and what is in a folder with the flag, as the walk does.

Search by tag. Type tag:red or tag:"Project X" in the box and press Return: the items under the folder that carry that tag, as Finder's tag: does. With other words, tag:red invoice, an item needs both; with two tags, tag:red tag:blue, it needs both tags. A pattern works too: tag:red *.pdf.

• The name of a tag is read in upper and lower case alike, and with or without accents: tag:cafe finds Café. Spotlight keeps the tags' names, not their colours, so tag:rouge does not find a tag named Red: type the name Finder shows for the colour in your language.
• Quote a name that holds a space. A " inside the quotes is written \". A tag: with no name after it, or in the middle of a word, is an ordinary word.
• The list does not narrow while tag:red is typed: only the words of the box filter it, and Return starts the search.
• Spotlight answers, and follows the tags by itself. Where it cannot (Show Hidden Files on, a folder it does not index), the app walks the folders and reads each item's tags.
• A search of your home folder leaves ~/Library out, as any search does.

Search file contents too. Click the magnifier at the left of the search box and tick Search file contents too, or turn it on in Options › General: it is one switch, the same in every window. A search with Return then also finds the files whose text holds the words, as Windows does. It is off to start with. While it is on, the magnifier shows two lines of text.

• The text comes from Spotlight only: a PDF, a text file, and any other file macOS can read the text of.
• A word is found by its start, in upper or lower case, with or without accents: port finds Portable, not report. With two words or more, a file must hold each of them.
• The filter as you type stays on names, and a pattern with * or ? searches names only.
• With Show Hidden Files on, a hidden file is found by its name only: Spotlight leaves hidden files out.
• In a folder Spotlight does not index, only the names are searched, and the status bar says so.
• The 5000 hits count both kinds together.

Wildcards work in both kinds. A * stands for any run of characters and a ? for one character. So *.pdf finds the PDFs, and a?.txt finds a1.txt but not a12.txt. A pattern must match the whole name; text with no * and no ? still matches anywhere in the name, as before. Brackets are plain letters, as in Windows: *[x]* finds [x].txt, not every name with an x in it.

9. Right click menus

The same menu works on the file list and on the folder tree. A click outside an open menu closes it and does the click, in one move. A right click outside opens the menu for the item you clicked on.

Tags ›, as in Finder: the seven colours, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and Gray, then the other tags of the items and of the list on show, by name, each with its colour's round (a ring for a tag with no colour).

• A tick when every selected item has the tag, a dash in its round when some have it. A click adds the tag to all of them, or takes it off all of them when all had it. With more than 2000 items selected the ticks go by the tags the list has read while it showed them, so the menu opens at once; a click still reads every item.
• Edit Tags… opens a small window: the items' tags as a list, a box to type a new one (Add, or Return), and Remove to take the one picked off. A tag only some items have shows with its dash, and stays as it is unless you add it or remove it. OK changes the items, Cancel nothing. A typed name the Mac knows takes that tag and its colour: green is Green.
• The seven have Finder's names in the app's language, and each keeps its colour, so Finder paints it right in any language. Tag names are alike in upper and lower case, as in Finder.
• One Undo step per change. An item the Mac refuses, a locked one, is named in a message, and the others still change.
• It shows in the file list, the search results and on the folder rows of the left panel; not on a disk, nor in the Trash.

10. Open with, and Properties

Right click a file, or an .rtfd → Open with lists the real apps macOS knows for that file type, your default one first. Each app shows its own icon, and each app is listed once, like Finder: a copy of it inside a mounted installer disk image no longer shows a second time. Always open with ▸ changes the macOS default for that type, and asks first: Always open .pdf files with Preview? Other… lets you pick any app from /Applications.

Each app has the name Finder shows for it, in the language of the app: Aperçu, Livres and Utilitaire ColorSync in French, where the list said Preview, Books and ColorSync Utility, the names of the files. The list is sorted by these names. An app in Desktop, Documents, Downloads or on another disk keeps its file name: reading it could raise macOS's question about the folder.

Properties (Alt+Return or Cmd+I) shows name, kind, size, location, modified and created dates, the Hidden and Locked boxes (below), permissions and the full path. The Kind line has Finder's words, the ones the Kind column has: Plain Text Document, PDF document, and Application for an app. Folder sizes are counted in the background, so the window opens at once; the count keeps to one disk, so the Properties of Macintosh HD count the Mac's disk, not the other disks and network places it holds. Closing the window at once, while it counts, is always safe. With several files selected it shows the total, the file and folder counts, and every folder on its own line. The Location line shows the whole path on one line. A path line wider than the window is cut in the middle with …, as Finder cuts a path, so the folder it ends in still shows; its tooltip, and Copy in its right click menu, hold the whole path.

For a shortcut the kind is Shortcut, and a line Points to gives the place of the item it points to, as Windows shows its Target: where macOS finds it now, also after it moved. When the item is gone, or on a disk that is not connected, the line gives the place it had, and says so. The look never connects a disk.

Hidden and Locked

As the Attributes of Windows' Properties: two boxes under the dates, Hidden and Locked.

• Hidden: the item leaves the list while Show hidden files is off, in every window, as in Windows, and comes back when you clear the box. Finder hides it too. A name that starts with a dot is hidden by its name: its box is ticked and grey. The folder tree of the left panel and the deep search leave out an item hidden this way too, while hidden files are off: a folder you made Hidden is gone from the tree, and a search does not look inside it.
• Locked is Finder's word (Get Info › Locked) for what Windows calls Read-only: a locked item cannot be changed, renamed, moved or put in the Trash until it is unlocked. It stays in the list.
• A command that a lock stops says so: b.txt is locked. Unlock it in Properties first. This holds for Rename (F2 or a click on a selected name open no editor on a locked item), Delete permanently, Move to Trash, and a rename of several items. Finder offers to unlock the item and goes on; the app tells you where to do it.
• A move to another disk copies nothing of a locked item, nor of a folder that holds one: it stays where it is, and the line names the locked item. On the same disk, a folder that holds a locked file moves as before.
• The window has OK, Cancel and Apply, as in Windows. A box acts on OK or Apply; Apply keeps the window open, and a Cancel after it keeps what Apply did.
• Several items: one box of each for all of them. A mixed set shows the box half ticked. A click ticks it for all, the next one clears it for all; a box left half ticked changes nothing.
• An item the Mac does not let you change (another user's) is named in a message, and the others still change.
• A disk has no boxes, since it is no folder, and neither has the Trash nor an item in it. No Undo, as in Windows.

Share

As in Windows 11: right click files or folders → Share ›, or File › Share › for the selection. It holds macOS's own three ways to send files. The app itself sends nothing.

• AirDrop…: the macOS AirDrop window opens with them, and you pick a device nearby there, as with Nearby sharing in Windows. macOS sends the files.
• Mail…: a new mail opens with the files attached, in the Mac's mail app. You write it and send it there. A Mac that hands e-mail to a web browser (Chrome, say) opens nothing, since a browser takes no files, and the app says so.
• Messages…: a new message opens with the files in it. You pick whom it goes to, and send it there.
• A folder goes as it is, to all three. It works in the file list, in the search results and on the folder rows of the left panel. A disk, an item in the Trash and empty space have no Share.
• When the Mac has none of them, a message says so.

Also here: Show Hidden Files (Cmd+Shift+.), Reveal in Finder, Copy as Path (Cmd+Shift+C) and Terminal here.

The status bar shows the item count, and when something is selected, how many and how big, plus the free space on that disk. It updates a moment after the selection settles, and above 2000 selected items it shows the count only, so Cmd+A in a huge folder never stalls.

11. Options

The Options button sits at the right of the toolbar. Cmd+, opens the same window, and macOS also puts it in the WizMac Explorer menu next to the Apple logo, named Settings… as in macOS 13 and later (Réglages…, Einstellungen …, Impostazioni…, Ajustes… in the other languages).

Every change lands at once. There is no OK button to forget, and a change reaches every open window, not only the front one. Restore Defaults puts them all back, except the answer about checking for updates.

General

Theme. The app follows the macOS appearance to start with. Pick Always light or Always dark and the app keeps that one, whatever macOS does. The change lands at once, in every window.

Density. How much room one row gets. A roomier density also carries a bigger icon. Standard to start with.

It works in the file list, in the four icon views, in the search results and in the left panel. Compact is the app exactly as it was before this option existed, so it is the way back if you liked the old one.

Folders

The colour is painted on the real macOS folder icon, so its light and shade stay and the white page corner of a full folder stays white. It shows in the file list, in the icon views, in the search results and in the left panel. Disks keep their own picture, and so do apps: an app, or a link to one (Safari in Applications), keeps its own icon. Only plain folders take the colour.

The colour is the same on every Mac. macOS draws its own folder in the colour of System Settings › Appearance › Icon, widget & folder color: blue, a pale indigo on a MacBook Neo set to Automatic, grey for Graphite. The colour you pick here does not depend on it: orange is the same orange with any of them. Only macOS blue (normal) follows that setting, as it is the macOS folder itself.

Left panel

A note on the page says what the pin and a drag of a section's name do (section 4).

Mouse & keys

Which key forces a copy while you drag, and which one forces a move. Command and Control to start with. One key cannot do both jobs: pick a key that is already taken and the other box gives way.

Hold no key and the app still does what Windows does: a drag on the same disk moves, a drag to another disk copies.

Shortcuts

Every key of the app, on one page, in five groups. Copy the list puts the whole thing on the clipboard. The drag rows name the keys you chose above. A long line takes two lines instead of ending in ….

12. Every keyboard shortcut

13. Permissions after an update

macOS ties a permission to the app's signature, not to its name or its place on your disk. From version 1.0, every version of WizMac Explorer carries the same signature, checked by Apple, so the permissions you give it stay after an update.

The move from 0.9 to 1.0 is the one exception. The versions before 1.0 were not signed with an Apple certificate, and each one carried a signature of its own. So macOS sees 1.0 as a new app, once, and the permissions you gave the old version stop working.

You notice it straight away: the Trash looks empty even though it is not. That is Full Disk Access, gone. Since version 0.3.0 the app says so itself: a yellow bar above the list reads This app cannot read this folder, and its link opens the right page of System Settings.

An update made from the app (Help › Check for Updates…) shows the steps below itself, once the new version runs and cannot read the Trash. Its Open Settings button opens the right list, and the steps stay on screen.

On your first install, open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access, press +, and add /Applications/wizmac-explorer.app. There is nothing to remove yet.

After the move from 0.9 to 1.0:

1. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access.
2. Find the WizMac Explorer line — that is the name macOS shows, while the identifier the app declares is org.wizit.wizmac-explorer. Select it and remove it with the − button.
3. Press the + button and add /Applications/wizmac-explorer.app again.
4. Quit the app and start it again. The permission only counts on a fresh start.

Turning the switch off and on does not work. The line still carries the signature of the old version, so the app stays blocked. The line must be removed and added again. If even that does not help, open Terminal, run the line below, and add the app again:

tccutil reset SystemPolicyAllFiles org.wizit.wizmac-explorer

The move to 1.0 also asks once more before the app may read a network disk. The question comes up the first time you open such a folder in the left panel. Answer it, and it stays answered. The same is true for Files and Folders.

14. Help, updates, and reporting a problem

The Help menu sits next to File, Edit, View and Go.

The About window

It shows the app icon, the name, the version, the publisher — Association WizIT, La Forclaz (VS), Switzerland — and one line saying the app is free for non-commercial use under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. Below it, two links: Support WizIT and Price for companies. Both open the pricing page, at the gift or at the licence.

• Copy version info puts three lines on the clipboard: the app version, the macOS version and the chip. Paste them into a bug report.
• Esc or Close shuts the window.
• Tab reaches the two links, and Return opens the one it reached. Before a Tab, Return still closes the window.
• macOS shows one About item only, in the WizMac Explorer menu next to the Apple logo. It opens this same window.

The name of the app

People read WizMac Explorer: in Finder (Applications, Get Info), Launchpad, Spotlight, the Dock, Cmd+Tab, Open With and the window of the download. The file is still wizmac-explorer.app, so an update lands at the old path and the permissions given to the app stay. A copy renamed by hand shows its new file name in Finder: that is macOS's rule.

Report a Problem

It opens a window holding the report, ready to fill in. Four headings: what I did, what I expected, what happened, and my Mac — that last one already filled in with the version, the macOS version and the chip.

• Copy report puts the whole thing on the clipboard. Paste it into an e-mail to info@wizit.org. This always works.
• Open Mail App asks macOS for your mail app and hands it a draft, subject and body included. Some Macs send e-mail links to a browser instead of a mail app, and then nothing opens. Use Copy report in that case; the window says so.
• Known problems, a line just above the buttons, opens the support page in your browser: the problems already known, what to do about each one and the version that fixes it, then the questions that come back, and how to report. Look there first: your answer may be written already. The link sends nothing, and the page changes with no new version of the app.

There is no bug tracker to sign up to. E-mail is the way.

When something goes wrong

The app finds its own errors and crashes, and offers the report. It never sends it: you read it, and you send it by e-mail, with the same two buttons.

• An error while the app runs. The app goes on. A mark shows in the status bar of every window: a warning sign and Report a Problem…. A click opens the report, with the error in it. The mark goes away then, until the next error. Each error is noted once, and its repeats counted.
• A crash. At the next start, the report of the crash opens next to the window: WizMac Explorer quit unexpectedly the last time. It opens once. Close it, and it does not come back.
• Help › Report a Problem… also holds the errors of this run, when there were any.

The report adds a part under What the app found: the version, Python and Qt, the language, then each error with the places in the app's code it went through, and the last commands you gave (paste, refresh, key Delete). It holds no file name and no folder name: a path becomes <path>.pdf, a name <name>.xlsx, only the extension stays. Your home folder is ~, your user name and full name <user>, the Mac's name <mac>. It holds no value of the app, no search text and nothing of the clipboard. You can change or delete any of it before you send it.

While the app runs, it keeps a small note in ~/Library/Logs/wizmac-explorer/: the errors so far, and the stacks of a crash. A normal quit removes it. The next start reads a note that is left, offers it, and removes it.

Updates

Help › Check for Updates… looks for a new version now. Help › Check for Updates at Startup, just below it, does it each time the app starts. Options › General holds the same switch.

The first start asks first. A small window asks whether the app may look for new versions: Check for Updates or Don't Check. Nothing goes on the internet before a yes. Closing the window answers nothing, and the question comes back at the next start. Your answer is kept, and a click on the switch counts as one. Restore Defaults in Options leaves the switch as it is: it is an answer, not a look, and it never asks again.

A check asks www.wizit.org for two small files: the newest version number and the release notes. The first also names the oldest macOS that version runs on. It sends nothing about you or your files. The check at start says nothing when there is no new version, when the new version needs a newer macOS than your Mac has, or when the site does not answer. A check from the menu always answers: up to date, Version X needs a newer macOS, or the check did not work, with Try Again.

When a new version is out, the Software Update window shows:

• the new version and yours;
• what changed in every version since yours, newest first: the same notes as the release notes page;
• a warning on top when one of them holds a breaking change, something you know that works another way now;
• one line at the bottom: the app is free for non-commercial use, WizIT makes it, and a Support WizIT link.

Install and Restart downloads the new version, about 40 MB, with a progress bar and Cancel. It checks it, closes the app, puts the new version in place of the old one, and opens it. Your tabs come back as you left them. Later closes the window.

The new version is checked before it goes in: the download must match the SHA-256 this website names, the app in it must pass the macOS signature check and come from the same developer as yours, and its name and version must be the ones this website names. Anything else stops the update and removes the download. Your version stays as it is, and the window offers Open the Website.

• Install waits while a copy, a move, a zip, a delete or an undo still runs: the update closes the app.
• A copy that cannot replace itself offers Open the Website instead, and says why: a copy on an Intel Mac (the version here is for Apple Silicon only), or a copy in a folder it may not change, like the disk image itself.
• When an update did not finish, the next start says so, and names the log you can add to a report: ~/Library/Logs/wizmac-explorer-update.log.

The oldest macOS. The app needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later. On a Mac with an older macOS, macOS refuses to open it and says it needs a newer macOS. When a new version needs a newer macOS than your Mac has, the update window says so, for example Version 2.0 needs macOS 27 or later, and this Mac has macOS 26.5. Your version stays as it is., with OK: no Install and Restart, no list of changes, and nothing is downloaded. The app reads the number from the files inside it, so no number is written by hand. Versions up to 1.5.0 do not read it.

After the move from 0.9 to 1.0, macOS takes back Full Disk Access once (see Permissions after an update); later updates keep it. When the new version cannot read the Trash, it shows the steps. Open Settings opens the right list and leaves the steps on screen.

Support WizIT

WizMac Explorer is free for any non-commercial use. WizIT, the association that makes it, is a non-profit. The pricing page takes a gift, and sells a licence per Mac to a company.

The app only links to that page, from three quiet places: Help › Support WizIT, the About window, and the last line of the Software Update window.

• No window of its own asks for a gift. The app counts no starts and no days, and it never reminds you.
• It never checks a licence. It has no licence key, and it never goes on the internet for one. A company that pays keeps its invoice: it is the licence.

What goes on the internet

Only the update check you allowed, and the download you asked for. Every link above is handed to your browser or your mail app. The app sends no crash reports and no statistics, and it has no account. When something goes wrong, it writes a report for you to read, and you send it by e-mail if you want to (When something goes wrong). The privacy policy says it in detail.

Share is not the app's own network either. The app hands the files you picked to macOS, as Finder's Share menu does. AirDrop: macOS sends them to the device you choose. Mail and Messages: those apps open a new mail or message with the files, and they go out only when you send it there, from your own account. Nothing goes through WizIT.

Download now and Remove download are not the app's own network either. The app asks macOS, and macOS talks to the cloud of your Google Drive, OneDrive or iCloud Drive, as it does for Finder. Nothing goes through WizIT.

15. What it does not do

These are choices, not missing pieces:

• It does not replace Finder. macOS always keeps Finder as the default.
• No list of the files you opened. Recents lists the files you changed.
• No saved searches.
• No network, except the update check you allowed: no crash reporter that sends by itself, no telemetry, no account. A problem report goes out only in an e-mail you send.
• No update that installs itself: a new version goes in only when you click Install and Restart.
• No window that asks for money, and no licence key: a gift is a link to this website. See Support WizIT.