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Add to SafariWhen comparing ForkLift 3 vs Far Manager, the Slant community recommends ForkLift 3 for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac file managers?” ForkLift 3 is ranked 5th while Far Manager is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose ForkLift 3 is:
It's just a perfectly crafted app, try and enjoy
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Best UX/UI'd file manager on the market
It's just a perfectly crafted app, try and enjoy
Pro Rewritten in Swift
Forklift 3 is a significant update from FL2, having been rewritten entirely in Swift.
Pro Optional dark UI
In addition to the default Mac gray UI, Forklift 3 offers an alternate "Dark Mode" featuring light text elements against dark backgrounds.
Pro Connect to and mount lots of storage options
FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Rackspace CloudFiles, SMB, AFP, NFS, VNC, etc.
Pro Easily toggle hidden files
Pro Built-in application remover
Pro Keyboard-oriented
Far Manager's interface encourages keyboard operation - all actions are easily accessible with keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly record macros for any repeatable action, there are no screen redraws if it is not necessary and that makes everything faster.
Pro Open source
Released under BSD license.
Pro Two-panel interface
Pro Many plugins
There are may of them, and you can write them in any languages, including Python.
Pro Editor with syntax highlighting
Every Far feature is also true for its editor. You can setup an external editor if you like, but the included editor works really well and features syntax highlighting.
Pro Easily recorded macros
Hit "Ctrl-." and start recording your boring sequence. Hit "Ctrl-." again to assign it a key. You can use Lua if you need more advanced macros.
Pro Numeric sorting option
E.g. readme-9.txt before readme-10.txt
Pro Extremely fast
Pro Offline context help
Just press F1 when you need it. No internet connection or browser is required.
Pro Themeable
Fully themeable, allowing you to change the colors of every part of the interface.
Pro Scrippting support via LUA
Cons
Con Like Apple, it does not standardize file size. Mixes up KBs, MBs GBs in the same column which makes it very difficult to review file sizes
Con Like Apple, shows the date of Today's file as "Today" instead of the actual date
Con Does not sync the "selected" folders (i.e. highlighted ones), but the "current" folders (i.e. the top of the visible tree.)
Con Does not show the fixed tree section in the left pane of a dual horizontal panes
Con Blocking operations
Operations such as copy, move, delete, etc are blocking, and you have to wait for them to complete before you can continue.
Though you can cancel the operation with the escape key.
Con Only for Windows
Con Always uses monospace font
Which makes long file names look extremely wide
Con Does not support scrolling with mouse
With plugin
Con Text-based interface
Far Manager does not use a GUI like most windows applications nowadays. This may prove difficult to use for people who are not familiar with text-based user interfaces.
Con Folder shortcuts not available in Alt+F1/F2 menus
