Ask This Folder
“When does the lease end?” Spotlight finds the documents, Apple Intelligence reads the matching passages, and the answer names the file and page. Click it and Preview opens at the passage. Nothing to index.
File manager for Mac · One pane or two · Apple Intelligence built in
One pane or two. Either direction.Apple Intelligence. Your files, understood!
maXfolders is free to use, with everything included for two months and then $9.99 once to keep the rest. Pro comes with it.
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maX efficiency
FreemaXfoldersPRO
Everything you do with files, without leaving the app.
maXfolders works with one pane or two: with a second pane shown, the active pane is the Source, the other is the Destination, and every action knows which is which. Copy, move, compare, search and pack files without hunting through overlapping Finder windows. Preview a file, edit it, rename a hundred of them, convert them, reach a server, run a command, and see what a folder holds — all from the same window, with the keyboard or the mouse. And on a Mac with Apple Intelligence, ask a folder a question, see what changed, and just say what you want.
Move files
Copy and move between two panes, or to any folder from one, with a Shelf to collect files from several folders first — and, with the trial or the unlock, a Preflight check before anything is written.
Find and compare
Search by name or content, compare two folders side by side, and see folder sizes worked out in the background.
Rename and convert
Bulk rename, convert images, PDFs, audio and video, and pack or unpack archives — each with a dry run before it touches a file.
Look and edit
Preview almost anything, open a file in Quick Edit, browse photos in Media Show, and build contact sheets, without opening another app.
Reach anywhere
Browse FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3 and Dropbox like a folder. Pro adds a built-in terminal and a Git Assistant PRO in the same window.
Just say it
Ask a folder a question, ask what changed, or describe the rename or sort you want in plain words. It runs on your Mac.
One pane or two FreemaXfoldersPRO · Free in every state
One pane or two. Your choice.
The first time you open maXfolders, it asks how you would like to start: one clean folder view, or Source and Destination side by side. One pane still has tabs, a path bar you can type, Copy… and Move… to any folder, the Shelf, Find and Preview.
Change your mind at any time: Panes in the toolbar, View → Show Second Pane or ⌥⌘2 adds or hides the second pane, and every toolbar layout has the button. Hide it and its tabs are kept for next time. The panes are free in every state, and they never depend on the trial or the purchase.
macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Apple Silicon and Intel · Sandboxed, with Finder, Share and Quick Look extensions.
maX focus
New in 2.1.9 FreemaXfoldersPRO
Tools beside each pane. The Shelf beside the panes.
The toolbar starts with just Find and Preview. Everything else is where you use it: each pane has a Tools button beside its path that lists the tools for that pane's selection or folder — Inspect & Edit, Organize, Media and Understand This Folder. The menu bar's Tools menu has the same groups, plus Utilities.
The Shelf now sits docked on the right of the main window, beside one pane or both. Detach it into a floating window and dock it back, and the files on it stay put.
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maX navigation
New in 2.3.0 FreemaXfoldersPRO
Favourites — your places, one click away
A compact Favourites sidebar sits at the left of the window, shared by every tab and window. Your home folder and disks are on top, Applications, Desktop, Documents and Downloads below the line, and the folders you bookmarked before come along. Click one and it opens in the Source pane; ⌘[ takes you back.
Make it yours: gather folders into groups you name and collapse, drag to reorder, or drag the current folder straight from the breadcrumb. The star beside each path adds a folder to any section or group in one click. Show or hide the sidebar with the button before the path field or ⌃⌘S. Free in every state.
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maX edit
New in 2.1.2 Apple Intelligence maXfoldersPRO
A full editor, inside your file manager.
Press ⌥⌘E on a text or code file. Quick Edit colours 49 languages, edits with multiple cursors and folding, shows the bytes in a hex view, queries JSON, YAML and TOML, decodes certificates and tokens, hides your secrets when you copy, and checks a config file before it can lock you out. Nothing leaves your Mac, and the old version is kept every time you save.
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New in 1.6.63 Apple Intelligence
Your files, understood.
Ask a folder a question and get an answer that links to the page it came from. See in plain words what changed between two versions of a contract. Know what an unfamiliar drive is before you open a thing. And stop filling in forms: say what you want, and the form fills itself in for you to check. The model is Apple's, on your Mac — local Apple Intelligence, and no other.
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What Changed?
One button turns a diff into a changelog: “60 days' notice instead of 30; the payment schedule moved to Appendix B.” Works on PDFs, Word files and text — and on the versions in Version History.
Summaries in Preview
A two-line summary above documents, PDFs and code, with the key dates and names in them — each one checked against the text. Scanned PDFs are read with text recognition first.
Explain This Folder
For a client delivery or an old drive: “An Xcode project with a Swift package; DerivedData and .build can be regenerated; the newest work is in Sources/Sync, from last Tuesday.” From the listing alone — no file is opened.
Describe it, on every form
“Make these web-ready: 2000px long edge, strip GPS, JPEG 80%.” Find, Bulk Rename, Bulk Convert, Preflight, Compare and Copy Template fill themselves in — “into Clients/{year}/{project name}” included.
Do… ⇧⌘P
Say it in one line and Apple Intelligence picks the window — Find, Bulk Rename, Bulk Convert, Copy Template, Compare, Ask or Explain — and fills it in. Nothing runs until you press Run.
Local only. Apple's on-device model is the only one. No cloud model, no account, and nothing to pay.
You stay in charge. It answers, summarises and fills in forms. It never copies, renames or deletes — you press Run.
Only where it works. On Macs with Apple Intelligence (macOS 26+, Apple silicon; Ask This Folder needs macOS 27), in both editions. Turn any of it off in Settings.
New in 1.6.67 Git Assistant Apple Intelligence PRO
Git, without the guesswork.
Your whole day in git, in one window beside your files. Stage what's going in — down to a single hunk — and let Apple Intelligence write the message, or split a morning's work into tidy commits. Pull, push and switch branches without losing a change. Settle merge conflicts side by side, tag the release with notes people can read, and get a branch ready for review. And when you can't remember the command, just say what you want.
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Commit, checked and written PRO
Stage whole files or single hunks. A pre-commit check flags keys, conflict markers, junk files and leftover debugging, and Write Message drafts the commit in your repository's own style. Your hooks and signing apply.
Split into Commits PRO
A morning of mixed changes becomes focused commits — code with its tests and the docs about it, junk left out — each with a message Apple Intelligence wrote from its own changes. Rearrange and reword before anything is committed.
Branches, stashes and sync PRO
Pull, Push and Sync in one click — a password prompt carries on in the terminal. Switch branch and choose whether your changes come along or wait for you. Describe new work and get a branch name; Clean Up what's merged.
Conflicts, settled PRO
When a merge, rebase or stash stops, each conflict shows up side by side: Keep Current, Incoming or Both, a suggestion when the answer is clear, and Explain Conflict to hear what each side changed.
Release notes since the last version PRO
Everything since the last tag, grouped into New, Improved and Fixed — every line tied to the commits it came from, ready to copy as Markdown.
Tag the release PRO
Tag Release works out the next version from the commits — major, minor or patch — and tags it with the notes. It can add a CHANGELOG.md entry, push the tag and create the GitHub release too.
A branch, ready for review PRO
How big it is, how far behind main, what's untested — then Update from main, Squash into One Commit, a drafted title and description, and Create Pull Request with gh in one click.
Ask Git PRO
“Undo my last commit but keep the changes.” “Add *.log files to .gitignore.” Get the real command, what it does and whether it's Safe, Rewrites history or Can lose work — and run it in the embedded terminal.
Any version, beside your folder PRO
Show in Destination lists any commit, tag or branch in the other pane — read-only, nothing checked out. Compare a file with today's, or copy an old one out.
Tidy before you push PRO
Fixup, Reword and reorder the commits you haven't pushed, stage just the lines you select, and have Apple Intelligence Review the staged diff — with Undo.
Your git. It runs the git you already use, so your config, hooks and commit signing apply. When a remote asks for a password, the push or pull carries on in the terminal, where you see every prompt.
Checked, not guessed. The pre-commit and pull request checks are rules with file and line. Commits are grouped by rules, conflicts suggested by rules, and release notes that can't be tied to a commit are left out.
Nothing you can't take back. Discards, commits, merges, rebases, squashes and deleted branches come with Undo, and a command that can lose work is only typed into the terminal until you press Return.
New in 1.6.61 PRO
Sidecar awareness — never move half a project
A clip has its subtitles and thumbnail, a RAW has its JPEG and its XMP edits, a Sketch file has its assets folder. Other file managers treat each one as a stranger, so you copy the footage and find out in the edit that the captions stayed behind.
Copy or move a file with companions beside it, and Preflight lists them, ticked, before anything starts — never quietly added behind your back. Bulk Rename renames them to match, so clip_01.srt becomes Intro.srt the moment clip_01.mov becomes Intro.mov. The pairings are yours to edit, and you can add your own.
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Docked in the main window: new in 2.1.9 FreemaXfoldersPRO
The Shelf — stage files from anywhere, then move them all at once
The Shelf sits docked on the right of the main window. Drag files onto it from either pane, from Finder, or from another app's Share menu — nothing moves yet, it just waits there. Show or hide it with the tray button on the window's edge, the toolbar button or ⌃J, and drag its edge to make it wider.
When you're ready, Copy or Move sends everything staged on the Shelf into the active pane's folder in one go — the Shelf always shows exactly where they're headed first. View → Detach Shelf floats it in its own window that stays on top even when maXfolders isn't the frontmost app, or keep it in the menu bar instead.
Control-click → Add to Shelf also works on a remote pane — FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, or Dropbox, and iCloud Photos PRO.
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New in 1.6.57
Folder sizes, and the columns Finder never had
Every folder's real size, right in the Size column: added up in the background with a spinner, never a frozen list, and kept current as files change deep inside. A size bar behind each one shows its share of the folder, so the space hogs stand out at a glance. Sort by size to see where the space went, then by Days Since Opened to find what you haven't touched in years.
Add Date Taken, Camera, Lens, Dimensions and Megapixels for photos; Duration, Codec, Bit Rate and Sample Rate for video and audio; Pages for PDFs; and a SHA-256 Checksum on demand. Every column sorts, on what's known while the rest fills in. In every edition.
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New in 1.6.56 Apple Intelligence
Bulk operations — say what you want, check every file, then run
Turn a trip's worth of iPhone HEIC photos into JPEGs you can share anywhere, resized and with the location stripped out, in one pass. Merge a folder of PDFs, split or rotate them, remux video to MP4 without re-encoding, or convert audio. Rename hundreds of files by date taken, camera and a counter; copy, move or delete everything that matches.
On a Mac with Apple Intelligence you don't have to work out the settings: type “make these web-ready: 2000px long edge, strip GPS, JPEG 80%” or “Cascais, then date taken, then a 2-digit counter”, and Bulk Convert or Bulk Rename fills itself in. A dry run still shows every file and what will happen to it before anything runs. In maXfolders and Pro.
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New in 1.6.55
Preflight — will it survive the trip?
Before a copy or move starts, maXfolders walks everything you're about to send and checks it against the destination. You find out what won't make it before the first file moves, not halfway through or weeks later.
Will it fit, and how much space is left afterwards? What will it overwrite? Which names can't coexist on exFAT, NTFS or SMB, like Report.pdf and report.pdf? Which names, path lengths and 4 GB files won't survive a Windows or FAT32 disk, and which Finder tags will be left behind? It also catches locked and in-use files and symlink loops. For uploads to a server, it can store accented names in the composed form Linux and Windows expect.
A clean check goes straight on without a single extra click. The panel only appears when something needs your attention. In maXfolders and Pro.
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Two apps
Pick how you want to use it
maXfolders
Free, with everything for two months, then $9.99 once
- Free, always: tabs, one pane or two, copy, move, rename, the Shelf, Find, Preview, Folder Compare and Sync Browsing
- With the trial or the unlock: Quick Edit, bulk operations, Folder analysis, Sort Into Folders, Contact Sheets, Version History, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, Dropbox and Apple Intelligence
- One purchase per major version, through the App Store; the free features stay either way
- Includes a license for maXfolders Pro
maXfolders Pro
Included with maXfolders
- Everything in maXfolders, not sandboxed
- Disk analysis, embedded terminal, Finder integration, Git Assistant
- iCloud Photos, 7-Zip & RAR archives and undo
- two months included to try, then your maXfolders purchase unlocks it
What it does
Built for people who live in folders
Dual panes, not dual windows
Each pane has Finder-style lists, folder tabs, and a path bar. Flip Source and Destination, or swap the two folders, without losing your place.
Copy, move, compare
Transfers queue in a persistent window — pause, resume, reorder, or cancel any of them. Folder compare paints identical, missing, and changed items. A side-by-side comparator opens text and binary files.
Find, pack, preview
Search by name, content, size, and date. Browse zip and tar like folders. Preview code and documents in a separate window that follows the Source selection.
Compare
See what changed, then keep what you want
Compare two folders by name. Matching items go green, missing items red, and same-name files with a different date orange. Then Keep Source or Keep Destination — with an option to keep only the newer file.
Need the contents of two files? File Comparator shows a side-by-side text or hex view, jumps between differences, and can hide matching lines.
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Connect
Browse a server like a local folder
Connect to Server (⌘K) opens FTP or SFTP in a pane you browse, drag, upload, and download exactly like a local folder. Passwords and key passphrases stay in the Keychain; SFTP host keys are pinned.
Enter a host, pick Password or Private Key, and the remote pane behaves like Source or Destination — copy, move, and compare work the same way across the connection.
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Terminal PRO
A terminal that follows your path
F11, ⌃⌘T, or the terminal icon opens a colored, resizable shell below either pane — no separate window, no switching to Terminal.app. As you navigate — Backspace, a double-click, the path bar, or a favourite — the shell sends a cd to match, so its prompt always sits in the folder you're looking at.
Inside a git working tree, a small toolbar above the shell adds Git Status, Fetch, Pull, Push, and Commit All…, alongside Clear Terminal — and a button that opens Git Assistant PRO for that repository. Each pane remembers its own height and whether it's open.
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Looks at home on a Mac
Native lists, themes, and a toolbar you can shape
A unified, icon-only toolbar. Finder icons in the file list. Appearance can follow macOS, or you can lock Light or Dark and pick a theme — Native, Paper, Sand, Ice, Midnight, Forest, Ember, Commander, Xcode, or Retro.
Full feature set
Everything, grouped and ready to open
Six groups cover every corner of maXfolders. Expand one below, or head straight to the Features page for screenshots and detail.
Apple Intelligence
8
- Ask This Folder — answers from your documents that open Preview at the passage
- What Changed? — a plain-language changelog in File Comparator, Version History and Compare Folders
- Summaries in Preview — two lines, with the key dates and names
- Explain This Folder — what an unfamiliar folder is, from its listing
- Describe it — Find, Bulk Rename, Bulk Convert, Preflight, Compare and Copy Template fill themselves in
- Bulk operations from a sentence — “Cascais, then date taken, then a 2-digit counter”
- Do… (⇧⌘P) — one line opens the right window, filled in
- Git Assistant — commit messages, release notes, pull request advice and Ask Git PRO
Panes & navigation
9
- Dual panes with tabs — Flip or Swap Source and Destination
- Finder-style lists, sortable, with Permissions, Tags, and Comments columns
- Folder sizes with size bars, plus Date Taken, Camera, Lens, Dimensions, Duration, Codec, Pages and Checksum columns
- Function Keys — choose what F1–F12 do, from five layouts or key by key
- Path bar with breadcrumbs and predictive typing
- Favourites sidebar — your places, one click away
- Sync Browsing — mirror navigation between the two panes
- iCloud Drive — a Go menu shortcut, plus Download Now for cloud-only files
- Open in maXfolders — a Finder toolbar item and right-click command
Transfer & compare
11
- The Shelf — stage files from anywhere, then Copy or Move them at once
- Bulk Convert — HEIC to JPEG, resize, strip GPS, merge or split PDFs, remux video, convert audio, or just describe it
- Preflight — free space, collisions, names and metadata checked before every copy or move
- Sidecar awareness — subtitles, XMP sidecars and RAW+JPEG pairs travel and rename with their files PRO
- Copy, move & delete queue in a persistent, resumable Transfers window
- Checksum-verified transfers for S3, Dropbox, and WebDAV
- Drag and drop straight from Finder — and out of a pane, to the Shelf or Finder
- Folder compare — color-coded, Keep Source or Destination
- File Comparator — side-by-side text and hex diffs
- Bulk Delete, Rename, Copy & Move with a dry-run preview — describe the new names with Apple Intelligence — local, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3 and Dropbox (and iCloud Photos on PRO)
- Danger-Zone Guards — blocks accidental Delete/Move of protected locations
Search, archives & lists
6
- Find — wildcards, content, regex, and archive search
- Describe it — Apple Intelligence fills in Find for you to check
- ZIP and tar browsed and edited like folders
- Save File List — export a folder tree to CSV
- Save List — keep Find's results as a CSV or a linked Markdown table
- Large File Viewer — paged, fast browsing of oversized text files
Remote & Git
6
- FTP and SFTP — Keychain passwords, pinned host keys
- Cloud Providers — WebDAV, S3, and Dropbox, browsed like a local folder
- Live FTP command/response log below the file list
- Git branch badge and a live status column
- Show Diff in Preview for a changed file
- Git Assistant — stage, check and commit, release notes, pull requests and Ask Git PRO
Look, feel & extras
9
- Send to maXfolders Shelf from any app's Share menu
- Ten themes, plus System, Light, or Dark
- Terminal.app in both editions, or an embedded shell that follows your path, on PRO
- Preview — a Quick Look–style window that follows Source
- Markdown preview — formatted, with working links and images
- Open, Edit, Permissions, and a customizable toolbar
- A Settings window (⌘,) with a reset button per section
- Shortcuts.app automation for Copy, Move, Archive, and Find actions
- Tools — Base64, URL, HTML, JSON, XML, escaping, QR codes, OCR, and a cron parser, built in
New in 1.6.40
A Tools menu, built right in
The Tools menu between Go and Window gathers every file tool — Inspect & Edit, Organize, Media, Understand This Folder and Developer, the same groups as each pane's Tools button — and Tools → Utilities holds nine small, self-contained utility windows: Base64, URL, and HTML encode/decode, image-to-text OCR, a JSON formatter, an XML formatter, string/HTML text escaping, a QR code generator and reader, and a cron expression parser. See the full writeup on the Features page.
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Use it free. Keep everything for $9.99.
maXfolders is free to use, with everything included for two months. After that the free features stay, and a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store brings back the rest and includes a license for maXfolders Pro, the unsandboxed app with the terminal, Finder integration and iCloud Photos. See the full comparison, or how Pro works.