When comparing Path Finder vs Magnet, the Slant community recommends Path Finder for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Path Finder is ranked 36th while Magnet is ranked 51st. The most important reason people chose Path Finder is:
Path Finder is built around a modular interface with six customizable views. Show only the information you need, when you need it.
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Pros
Pro Heavily customizable
Path Finder is built around a modular interface with six customizable views. Show only the information you need, when you need it.
Pro Dual finder panes allow seeing two folders side-by-side
Pro Tabs
Pro Integrates useful utilities, protocols, viewers and editors
Path Finder can be configured to automatically open and edit word documents, text, and image files. It also has an integrated terminal, hex editor, can archive type files, and can handle file network protocols, such as ftp and afp.
Pro File tagging
Pro Batch renaming support
Pro Powerful file search
Pro Permissions
Pro Drop stack allows temporarily collect files for operations
Pro Git and Subversion
Path Finder has built-in support for Git and Subversion version control systems.
Pro 30-day free trial
A full-featured version of Path Finder can be evaluated for free for 30 days.
Pro Keyboard centric
Easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.
Pro Intuitive handling
Just drag the window to one of the sides of the screen and it snaps there. This is especially useful for those who can't be bothered remembering the shortcuts.
Pro Cheap
At $0.99, it is not that expensive.
Pro Mouse controllable
Supports dragging a window along the edges of the screen to activate.
Pro Do not have to learn or remember keyboard shortcuts
Pro It's often on sale
For example, at the writing of this pro it's currently at $1.
Pro Up to six external displays supported
Cons
Con Buggy
- Heavy load on the system after network drive activity
- Crashes sometimes without warning
Con Expensive
Con Inserted disks or mounted volumes do not show up in the left pane in Path finder
You have to dig into the menu bar to mount a disk in the pathfinder, a royal pain. Disks should just show up when inserted.
Con Cannot setup custom sizes and window positions
Unfortunately, you can only move windows to preset positions.
Con Can only be purchased from the App Store
Magnet is only available in App Store.
Con Can't hide the menu bar icon
It would've been nice to be able to hide the icon so it doesn't clutter the menu bar.
Con Interference when switching between folders
Default Folder-X app "warns" that Magnet App may interfere with it's ability to switch between folders in Open and Save dialogue boxes.
Con Causes cursor bugs in IntelliJ IDEs
Unfortunately, Magnet causes the caret to bounce around in IntelliJ IDEs, this is very annoying.