AppBITS: FileUtils Turbocharges the Finder
Are you in the camp that considers the Finder to be woefully underpowered? If you’ve flirted with the idea of a Finder replacement but don’t want to venture too far afield from the standard Mac experience, check out ZigZag’s FileUtils. This inexpensive utility adds a cornucopia of advanced options to the Finder’s toolbar, contextual menu, and Services menu; you access its settings from a menu bar icon.
(FileUtils is a Finder extension. If you’ve updated to macOS 15 Sequoia, you may be confused by your inability to turn Finder extensions off and on. ZigZag explains the problem and provides the free FinderSyncer utility to work around the problem.)
What does FileUtils offer beyond the Finder’s core capabilities?
- Delete and Secure Delete: Don’t settle for just moving something to the Trash. Although you can delete immediately in the Finder by holding down Option and choosing File > Delete Immediately (I’d use Command-Option-Delete), FileUtils not only lets you delete files and folders instantly, but also provides three levels of secure deletion to guarantee that TV-show hackers won’t be able to recover your confidential files with their magic USB sticks.
- Compress: Sure, you can make Zip archives in the Finder. But FileUtils lets you make password-protected Zip archives or create archives in numerous other formats, including 7z, XAR, TAR, PAX, and CPIO, which sounds like a lesser-known Star Wars robot. You can even choose from GZIP, BZIP2, XC, and UNIX compression formats with the last three.
- Rename: The Finder has a little-known capability to rename a collection of selected files. However, it’s not nearly as capable as FileUtils, which lets you create multiple rules that replace text, replace using a regular expression, insert text, change case, add a number sequence, or add a date. Rules can apply to the name, extension, name with extension, or extension with the dot. They can also match every occurrence, the first or last occurrence, or the entire text. Case sensitivity is an option, FileUtils reports on any conflicts it would create, and you can save your sequences for later use.
- Size Browser: When it comes to drives, size does matter, at least if you don’t have enough. macOS provides decent tools for identifying large files and wasted space in System Settings > General > Storage Settings, but you have to click the ⓘ button next to Documents to get a file browser for the entire drive. FileUtils lets you focus on any folder, providing both a file browser and a sunburst diagram like DaisyDisk. Although this is neat, the browser was a bit jumpy when I tried to resize columns, and the sunburst completely boggles me. Perhaps it will make more sense to you. (I prefer GrandPerspective’s approach.)
- Permissions and ACLs: The Finder’s Info window lets you set basic permissions. FileUtils goes further, giving you checkboxes that clearly show what the owner, group, and everyone can do, along with the symbolic file permissions and file permissions number associated with the selection. Want more? You can also see and modify the Access Control List settings.
- Checksum: Want to trust but verify? FileUtils calculates numerous types of checksums for selected files so you can see if two files are identical.
- Copy Path: You probably know that holding down Option when you look in the Finder’s Edit menu changes Copy to Copy as Pathname, but the Finder has a single-track mind when it comes to path formats. In contrast, FileUtils lets you copy a file’s path using many formats.
FileUtils comes in three flavors: sandboxed and non-sandboxed versions for direct download, and a sandboxed version in the Mac App Store. The non-sandboxed version can access all files and integrates into the Finder’s contextual menu and toolbar. The sandboxed versions can only access folders for which you give permission, and additionally, the Mac App Store version can’t execute operations that require privilege escalation. A fully functional version of FileUtils works for 30 days, after which it encourages you to purchase for $9.99.
For many people, FileUtils would be overkill. Do you really need to create archives in multiple formats, calculate checksums, or copy Windows paths to your files? I don’t, but I’m willing to bet plenty of others out there are going, “Yes, I do!” If that’s you, install the trial version of FileUtils and see if it makes your life a little easier.
Just want to point out that you can delete in Finder without moving to the Trash. Hold down the Option key and Edit > Move to Trash changes to “Delete Immediately…”, which is bound to Option-command-delete.
It doesn’t secure delete, though. Whether secure delete is ineffective or harmful to an SSD is another issue.
Thanks—I’d forgotten about that and will update the article. I always use Command-Delete to trash files so I hadn’t looked at that menu item in ages.
Fascinating. From the Finder-centric point of view FileUtils is about adding more capabilities to the Finder. From the features point of view FileUtils is about competing with Path Finder (a Finder replacement) at a much more reasonable price.
I’ve had to use PF for a couple of the “do you need it” features (copying full pathnames in other formats), but my everyday use has involved grabbing files and scooting them in batches to their proper drives and directories. I do that with Default Folder as an able partner.
From your description this would be enough of a turbocharge for users whose Finder experience has been limited to renaming a file or moving folders from one place to another.
With some limits similar utilities, plus a Terminal replacement, are built into PF. I don’t mean this as a brush-off in any way; I’ve got nothing but felicitations for a developer who has figured out how to integrate a third-party tool into Apple’s corest-of-core apps, and get it distributed in both sandboxed and unsandboxed versions.
Milke (Dragan Milić) at his best. If you remember Springy archiver from more than a decade ago, this is from the same guy.
Ack! How did I miss this yesterday? Just last night, I manually did a 25-file batch rename…
I had a vague memory that there IS a way to do it in the Finder, but couldn’t remember.
NameMangler is very good indeed for that kind of thing.
For years I have avoided Pathfinder given its price and that it is subscription software when my only interest in it is for the very options that FileUtils offers. After testing the trial for 5 minutes I immediately purchased it. I really love this product as it adds features that should be standard in Finder that puts the user in full control of their files with a GUI interface. The only action missing from it that I would like to see is making a symbolic link for which I have a service that does that. The other thing missing is good documentation for some of the features such as ‘Rename’ which the developer has informed me might be available in the future, speaking of which, offered good support for my inquiry about it.
I mostly use Path Finder and use the Finder very little.
I also have Total Finder installed in the Finder. Although BinaryAge no longer maintains it, it still works in Sequoia for the most part. As most of you already know, it is somewhat a controversial app since SIP (System Integrity Protection) must be disabled. But I personally never found it to be a problem. I’ve been running my Mac that way for years.
The app I really miss is XtraFinder, which added all kinds of neat features to the Finder. Unfortunately, it stopped working several OS releases ago.
@ryoichi XtraFinder (see your link) says it supports Sequoia. Like you, I have not used it for a while - it was my favourite too. I don’t worry about disabling SIP, but I do have concerns about disabling library validation (for all apps).
Yes, a new version of XtraFinder that’s (supposedly) compatible with Sequoia was announced yesterday. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. It launches but quits every time I try to do anything in the Finder.