01
Two panes, no ceremony
Independent left and right panes with tabs, history, direct path entry, mounted volumes, list or grid view, hidden files, natural sorting, status counts, multi-selection, and drag-and-drop copying.
Built in Swift. No subscriptions. No telemetry.
macOS 14+Swift 60 runtime dependencies
CHADCOMMANDER
A simple, free, open-source Mac take on the Total Commander workflow. Two panes, real keyboard control, and none of the weight.
One app. Every file action.THE KEYBOARD WALKTHROUGH
Hands on keys.
Files in motion.
The demo below is captured from the real native app. Follow the live keystroke overlay to see how the dual-pane workflow fits together.
NOW PRESSINGTabSwitch panesMake the other side active
WHAT SHIPS
Small footprint.
Serious file work.
Chad Commander keeps the useful parts of orthodox file management and uses native macOS frameworks for everything else.
02
Commander muscle memory
View, open, copy, move, rename, create folders, and send items to Trash with the familiar F3–F8 rhythm. The command strip is always visible.
03
Search that stays useful
Run cancellable filename or UTF-8/Latin-1 content scans with regex, case, recursion, hidden-item, file/folder, wildcard-exclusion, and 64 MB safety controls. Results open as a normal pane tab.
04
A real shell in each pane
Each side owns a persistent zsh session. Browse in the pane and the shell follows; cd in the shell and the pane follows back.
05
Mac-native where it counts
Quick Look, selection-aware default-app discovery, every compatible Open With choice, native file icons, contextual menus, Trash, light/dark appearance, and accessibility metadata.
06
Safe by default
Copy, move, and Trash operations run in the background with visible progress. Conflicts get a new name instead of an overwrite, deletion is confirmed, and there is no network code or telemetry.
THE COMPLETE MAP
Every hotkey,
right here.
Apple keyboard using media controls? Hold fn with an F-key, or enable standard function keys in System Settings.
Move around
- Tab
- Switch active pane
- ↑ ↓ ← →
- Move the file cursor
- Home / End
- Jump to first / last item
- Page Up / Page Down
- Move one page
- Return
- Open folder or selected item
- Backspace
- Go to parent folder
- ⌘ [ / ⌘ ]
- Back / forward in history
Work with files
- F3 or Space
- Quick Look
- F4
- Open in the default app
- F5
- Copy to the other pane
- F6
- Move to the other pane
- ⇧ F6
- Rename
- F7
- New folder
- F8
- Move to Trash
- ⌘ Return
- Open — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ ⇧ C
- Copy — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ ⇧ M
- Move — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ R
- Rename — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ Delete
- Move to Trash — alternate shortcut
View & tools
- ⌥ F4
- Toggle active-pane terminal
- Control `
- Terminal — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ F
- Find files in active location
- ⌘ Return
- Run search while search is open
- Esc
- Close search
- ⌘ 1 / ⌘ 2
- List / grid view
- ⌘ ⇧ .
- Show or hide hidden items
- ⌘ ⇧ R
- Reload active pane
- ⌘ Y
- Quick Look — alternate shortcut
Tabs & focus
- ⌘ T
- New tab in active pane
- ⌘ W
- Close active tab
- ⌘ ⇧ N
- New folder — alternate shortcut
- ⌘ U
- Switch pane — alternate shortcut
FREE AS IN FREE
Your Mac.
Your files.
Your commander.
Chad Commander is a dependency-free Swift 6 app. Clone the source, run two commands, and the native app is yours.
Lightweight native build No account or analytics
❯ make test
All tests passed
❯ make app
Build/Chad Commander.app
READY_