FlyingFiles features — panels, archives, FTP and SFTP, viewing, search

FlyingFiles is a classic dual-pane file manager: the source folder in one panel, the destination in the other. Most of the features below have their own chapter in the manual.

1.7.2

Browse files as a list or a grid of icons with image thumbnails. Switch the view separately above each panel; set the default view for the left and right panels in Settings → Panels. Selection, filtering, file operations and drag and drop also work in the icon view.
Icons and thumbnails have five sizes, from very small to very large. Choose the size for each panel in its menu or in Settings → Panels; the app remembers it.
Start FTP/FTPS/SFTP copying, moving or deleting with “In a separate session” in the confirmation window. Each task has its own connections and progress window with Cancel, leaving the main window free for more operations. Conflict questions affect only that session.

Panels and navigation

Two panels side by side with Name, Size, Modified and Permissions columns; you can change column widths and the window split with the mouse, and the app remembers them.
Arrow-key navigation; Enter opens a folder or a file, Backspace goes back to the parent folder, Tab switches panels.
A path field where you can type any address, with a list of recently typed paths.
Directory history for each panel under the clock button, remembered after you close the app.
Quick filter: start typing in the list, and the panel shows only the names that contain the text.
Buttons for drives and volumes (including USB drives and network shares), with the name, path and free space in the tooltip; refreshed every few seconds — on macOS, Windows and Linux. After them come the clouds (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox on macOS and Windows) and paired computers.
Ejecting discs and unmounting drives with a right-click on the drive bar or on the mount point.
Formatting a USB flash drive, an external disk or a memory card from the same menu: file system, name and allocation unit size; only the selected volume is formatted, the other partitions stay.
Buttons for your home folder, Downloads, Desktop, the root folder, syncing with the other panel (the same folder in both panels), swapping the panels and adding the current path to favorites.
Sorting by any column, with folders always kept together; a separate default sort for each panel.
Hidden files shown or hidden with a single command in the View menu.
The cursor returns to the folder you left, and stays on the same file after a refresh.
Panel Content: instead of files, a panel can show saved FTP/SFTP servers or SSH/Telnet terminals (Cmd+1–3 on macOS, Ctrl+1–3 on Windows).
Categories, sorting and drag and drop in the server and terminal lists: F7 creates a category, clicking a header sorts the list, and an entry moves into a category with the mouse or through the Category field in the edit window.
Disk space below the file list: a usage bar, used space, total, percentage and free space; on macOS also the purgeable space (Time Machine snapshots, caches).
Folder summary in the first row: the used space and the number of files and folders, subfolders included if you wish.

Manual: Panels and navigation →

Selecting items

Space or Insert selects an item and moves the cursor down; + selects everything, - clears the selection, * inverts it.
Shift with the arrows, Home, End and PageUp/PageDown selects a range.
With the mouse: Cmd-click / Ctrl-click adds an item, Shift-click selects a range. Dragging a selected item takes the whole selection along.
One simple rule across the whole app: if there is a selection, commands act on the selected items; if not, on the item under the cursor.

Manual: Selecting items →

File operations

Copy (F5) and Move (F6) between any locations: disk, network share, archive, FTP, SFTP.
Drag and drop: into the other panel it copies, onto a subfolder or /.. in the same panel it moves; Option / Ctrl copies, Shift moves. The panel's info bar tells you what will happen when you drop, and the dialog after the drop still lets you choose Copy or Move (you can turn it off in Settings).
You can drag files on a disk to Finder, File Explorer, the desktop or another app, and files from other apps into a panel. Files on FTP/SFTP servers and in archives can be dragged only between the panels.
The destination is checked before the operation starts: a list of conflicts and a choice of Overwrite All, Overwrite Older, Skip Duplicates or Cancel.
A progress window with the current file, file progress, total bytes, file count, speed and elapsed time; Cancel works at any moment.
Files that couldn't be copied go on a list with the reason for the error, which you can save to a text file.
Moving within the same drive is done by renaming: instant, with no copying.
Atomic writes on disk: an interrupted copy never leaves half a file behind, and an existing file stays untouched.
Protection against copying a file onto itself: the same file seen under another path (through a symbolic link, in different letter case or — on Windows — through a network drive letter) won't be deleted by a move — the app refuses.
Delete (F8) with confirmation and progress; Move to Trash from the context menu.
New Folder (F7), New Text File (Shift+F4), Rename in place (Shift+F6).
Opening files in the system application, Open With, Show in File Manager (Finder, File Explorer).
Copy link — copies the full paths of the selected items to the clipboard.
Pasting from the clipboard (Cmd/Ctrl+V): text, a PNG image, HTML, RTF or PDF as a new file in the current folder — on a server and inside an archive too; files copied in another app are pasted as copies.
Optional cleanup of ._* and .DS_Store files after copying to network drives and USB drives.

Manual: File operations →

Viewing (F3)

Text with automatic encoding detection (UTF-8 with and without BOM, UTF-16 in both byte orders, Windows-1250, ISO-8859-1) and a line count.
Syntax highlighting as in the editor: PHP, Python, C#, C++, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON and XML (also .svg, .plist, .xaml, .csproj).
Markdown (.md) formatted as in Obsidian: headings, bold text, lists with task checkboxes, quotes, tables, code blocks in syntax colors, images saved next to the document and links that open with a click.
Files of any size on a disk open instantly, because the app reads only what's on the screen. Text over 4 MB has no syntax colors and no formatted view.
View menu in F3/F4: text, hex and Markdown modes, word wrap even for large files, and controls to hide information and image toolbars. ↗
Find on Cmd+F / Ctrl+F: in a large file it searches the whole file in the background, starting at the cursor, and in the hex view it also finds bytes (e.g. 4A 6F).
Go to a line or offset: Cmd+L / Ctrl+G; in large files and in the hex view, the status bar shows where the cursor is.
Images in PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP and WebP: fit to window, zoom, a checkerboard behind transparent areas, format, resolution and color depth.
Arrow-key browsing through the photos and videos in a folder, optionally wrapping around.
Videos: resolution and duration without reading the whole file, a frame from the video on macOS, system player and Open With buttons.
Files on a server are downloaded with a progress window and a Cancel button.

Editing (F4)

Text editor with search and go to line; saves without closing the window, in the file's own encoding — with or without BOM and in the same byte order as the original. A character the file's encoding can't store doesn't turn into “?”: the editor tells you about it and doesn't save.
Markdown in the editor is formatted too, and the line with the cursor shows the markup, so you can correct it. Clicking a task checkbox ticks it, and Cmd-click / Ctrl-click opens a link.
Syntax highlighting for PHP, Python, C#, C++, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON and XML, with the rules and colors in JSON files you can change, and room for a language of your own.
Large text files (over 4 MB) in an editor with line numbers, without syntax colors; saving a file on a disk without changing its length takes seconds, even with gigabytes.
Image editor: resizing with the aspect ratio kept, cropping with a preview, a magic wand and background removal, saving to PNG, JPEG, WebP or BMP at any path.
Hex editor for files of any size: overwriting and inserting, a digit column and a character column, changed bytes in a different color.
Saving a file from a server uploads it back to the server.

Manual: Viewing and editing →

FTP, FTPS and SFTP servers

Saved connections with a name, initial folder, passive or active mode, TLS encryption (FTPS) and a private key (SFTP).
Passwords in the macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager — never in the settings file.
A connection window with a Cancel button and a view of the conversation with the server.
Reconnecting after a dropped connection, retrying after a timeout, and checking whether an interrupted file had already arrived complete — without overwriting good data.
Optional SHA-256 verification of every file (on SFTP computed on the server side, when the server allows it).
Source dates preserved by default when uploading and downloading (downloads since 1.7.3); choose the copy date or a prompt in Settings. Fast mode skips the scan and date preservation.
Disconnecting with the Disconnect button, the FTP/SFTP → Disconnect command or the Cmd+D (macOS) / Ctrl+D (Windows) shortcut.
A transfer log on disk, helpful for tracking down the cause of a problem.

Manual: FTP, FTPS and SFTP servers →

SSH and Telnet terminals

The list of saved servers in a window on F9.
The list of terminals in a panel (Cmd+3 / Ctrl+3), with categories and sorting.
Connecting opens the system terminal (Terminal on macOS, Windows Terminal or Command Prompt on Windows) with a ready ssh or telnet command, including with a private key.

Manual: Terminals →

Favorite paths and network shares

Favorite Paths (F2) with local folders and locations on servers; you change the order by dragging.
A favorite pointing to a folder on a server connects and opens that folder right away.
macOS: a favorite pointing to an unmounted network share mounts it first — with the password from the Keychain.

Manual: Favorite paths →

Search

Search…: name (mask, contains, starts with, ends with, equals), extension, type, size, modification date, hidden files, owner, group, permissions and file content; in subfolders or not, case-sensitive or not.
Search changes…: files changed in the last minutes, hours, days, months or years, which you can copy to the other panel with the folder structure preserved and a review before copying.
The tables in the Search changes and Confirm Changes windows sort when you click a header, and a column width changes when you drag the right edge of its header; the widths survive a restart.
Minify files in the Confirm Changes window (PHP files for now): they reach the server or the destination folder without comments, blank lines and unnecessary spaces, and the source files stay unchanged.
Double-clicking a result takes the panel to the file that was found.
Works on disk, inside archives and on servers.

Manual: Searching →

Comparison and statistics

Compare Directories (Shift+F2): missing files, a different type, size, date or content (MD5); with or without subfolders; results to the clipboard or a CSV file.
In the comparison result: selecting by side, Synchronize (copying the missing items both ways and the newer file in place of the older one) and Delete… from the left, from the right or from both sides.
Statistics for a file or a whole folder tree: number of files and folders, total size, the largest, newest and oldest file, the most common extensions, hidden items and symbolic links.
Subfolder sizes, largest first: Every subfolder with the total size of its contents, largest first; double-click or Enter opens the folder in the active panel.
System Information (Help menu): processor, memory, system disk, displays and the app version, refreshed live, with copying to the clipboard.

Manual: Comparison and statistics →

Disc burning

CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs, M-DISC too, on macOS, Windows and Linux — from the selected files and folders.
A space check before writing: the window tells you right away whether the data will fit, and if not, how much more is needed.
A choice of write speed, verifying the data after burning, and ejecting the disc.
A burning window with the stage, speed, time left, a log and a summary.
Disc template: a folder marked as a disc shows below the list how much of that disc it takes, and the bar turns red when it overflows.
A blank BD-R at full capacity on every system; a spare area for defective spots can be turned on in the settings.

Manual: Disc burning →

Video conversion

Convert Video… from the Functions menu or from a video's context menu (MP4, MOV, MKV and others), for several files at once too.
Preset: 480p, 720p, 1080p, 4K or audio only. The resolution only goes down — a smaller recording isn't enlarged.
H.264, HEVC, VP9 or AV1 codec, or remuxing without quality loss; MP4, MOV, MKV or WebM format, and audio only as M4A or MP3. The app offers only what the installed FFmpeg can encode.
Constant quality or a bitrate with an estimated file size; plus frame rate, audio and hardware encoding, when it works on this computer.
The result goes next to the original or into the other panel's folder. Existing files are never overwritten — when a name is taken, a number is added.
The conversion is done by FFmpeg, a free program installed on your system. When it's missing, the app shows how to install it. Only files on the local disk can be converted.
Extract Audio… from MP4: MP3 with encoding choices, or the original codec without quality loss, also for multiple files (requires FFmpeg).

Manual: Video conversion →

Synchronization and paired computers

Your settings on another computer: FTP/SFTP servers with passwords, terminals, favorite paths, settings, language, theme, font and keyboard shortcuts — you choose exactly what with the fields on the Synchronization tab.
With an .ffsync file encrypted with a password, also between macOS, Windows and Linux; paths in the home folder adapt to the other system.
Over the local network with a computer paired with this one: pairing by comparing a six-digit code on both screens, then Synchronize Now. The connection is encrypted, with no servers on the internet and no account.
A list of changes before they're applied: new, changed and removed items, and those changed later on this computer — only the selected ones are applied. Removing a server is transferred to the other computer too.
Server passwords over the network only to the computers you allow.
A paired computer's files in the panel: its drives under a button on the drive bar, copying and moving (F5, F6) with progress and cancelling, also between two paired computers. File sharing is off by default.

Manual: Synchronization and paired computers →

.ffignore rules

A .gitignore-style rules file in a project folder: the files and folders you choose (e.g. node_modules/, *.log) are skipped when copying, moving and searching.
You can add rules straight from the Search changes results.

Manual: .ffignore rules →

Appearance, language and settings

Interface in English, Polish, Spanish, German and French: the app starts in the language of your system and switches on the fly.
System, light or dark theme; your choice of font, font size and row spacing.
Settings on eight tabs with a list of categories on the left: size unit (B, KB, MB, GB) and counting KB, MB and GB by 1024 or by 1000, default sorting, conflict handling, connection timeouts and more.
Checking for updates at startup — the app asks only when there's a new version; you can turn it off.
Custom keyboard shortcuts: File → Keyboard Shortcuts… changes the shortcuts of the F1–F10 keys, the panels and the top bar, and of the File, Functions, FTP/SFTP and Help menus, and lets you give a shortcut to actions that have none. A change works immediately; the app refuses a combination that would break something and tells you why.
Help on F1 in sections: the current shortcuts in groups, the file list keys, drag and drop, and links to the manual, the FAQ and help on the app's website.
Settings in a readable text file, with backup copies.

Manual: Settings →

System integration

macOS: right-click the app icon in the Dock to see the open windows. Main windows are named after the folders in both panels, with the connection name for a server; click an entry to bring that window forward. ↗
macOS: the system menu bar, Cmd+, for Settings, New Window from the Dock icon menu, Trash and Finder through system features, installation in ~/Applications and updates checked at startup and from the Help menu.
Windows: menu access keys with Alt, Recycle Bin and File Explorer, installation and updates through the Microsoft Store — the app asks the Store at startup too, and on demand with Help → Check for Updates…; the package sets up the firewall rules for the local network.
Linux: .deb and .rpm packages with an entry in the applications menu, passwords in the keyring (GNOME Keyring, KWallet), apps associated with file types, the trash and Open With through gio, a drive bar with media mounted in /media, and formatting through UDisks2.
macOS and Windows: passwords in the system credential store, apps associated with file types, buttons for drives and network shares.
All three systems: dragging files on a disk to the system's file manager (Finder, File Explorer, Nautilus), to the desktop and to other apps, and from them — through the system's drag-and-drop mechanism.

What FlyingFiles doesn't do

To spare you disappointment: the app has no back/forward buttons, no in-window video player, and no direct connection to the cloud or WebDAV; it doesn't create 7z or RAR archives, it doesn't burn ISO disc images, and it doesn't run on Intel-based Macs. More in the FAQ.

Features