Swift Salamander
Download for macOS
v0.7.3 · Early Access

A faster, calmer
file manager for macOS.

Two panes. One palette. Every shortcut you'd hope for.
Swift Salamander is the file manager for people who actually work with files.

Download free 14-day Pro trial See Pro

Free forever. 14-day Pro trial on first launch — no card required. One-time Pro licence available during Early Access at 99 CHF, rises to 149 at v1.0.

macOS 13 Ventura+ · Apple silicon & Intel · Trash-first deletes · Atomic writes
Swift Salamander dual-pane window in light theme
Speaks every protocol via rclone SMB· S3 / R2· SFTP· WebDAV· Google Drive· Dropbox· OneDrive· B2· FTP
Why we built it

Finder is fine for most people.
You're not most people.

If you move, organize, and audit files all day, the macOS default leaves you reaching for workarounds — extra windows, terminal commands, third-party utilities. Swift Salamander is one tool that respects how you actually work.

The status quo

What slows you down today

  • One pane at a time. Copy from A to B means juggling two windows or remembering paths.
  • Spotlight isn't a file-manager search. Results live in their own window, far from where you wanted to act on them.
  • Mouse-bound. The keyboard shortcuts that exist are inconsistent and incomplete.
  • Cloud + network are second-class. Each backend gets its own app or mount.
  • No git awareness. Modified, untracked, ignored — invisible until you switch to a terminal.
Swift Salamander

What you get instead

  • Two panes, one window. The natural shape of "from here to there." Independent tabs and history per pane.
  • Spotlight name search right inside the active pane — no separate window to manage.
  • Keyboard-first. Command palette plus 20+ shortcuts. Hands stay home row.
  • Local, network, cloud behave the same. SMB, S3, SFTP, Drive, Dropbox, B2, WebDAV, FTP, OneDrive in the same UI.
  • Inline git status. M / A / D / U / ? badges per row, branch in the status bar.
Built for file work

Every feature you'd hand-roll yourself.

Bundled, polished, keyboard-first. Below is what works in v0.7.3 today; the muted cards at the end are next on the path to v0.8.

Dual-pane browsing

Two independent panes, each with its own tabs, history, and view mode. Drag between them to move or copy.

~/Documents
brand-manual-v3.pdf
quarterly-report.pdf
team-photo.jpg
notes.md
r2:backups
archive/
2026-04-photos.zip
contracts.pdf
manifest.json

Command palette

Core file actions one fuzzy search away. Run, repeat, and chain commands without touching the mouse.

›tras
Move to trash⌘⌫
New folder⌘⇧N
Go home⌘H

Git status awareness

Modified, added, deleted, untracked, and conflicted files appear inline. Branch in the status bar.

Cloud via rclone

S3, R2, GCS, Drive, Dropbox, B2, OneDrive, SFTP, WebDAV, FTP, SMB — one sidebar, one keymap.

Quick Look + preview

Spacebar previews like Finder, plus an always-on preview pane that shows the current selection.

Conflict resolution

Replace, skip, keep both, or rename — per file or in bulk. Compare both versions before deciding.

Tags · Starred · Recents

Color tags read and write Finder's native tags. Star anything for instant access. Scope-aware recents.

Trash-first deletes

Nothing disappears silently. Files go to macOS Trash. Atomic writes mean operations finish — or don't.

Four view modes

List, Detailed list, Icons, and Gallery. Real first-page / first-frame thumbnails for PDFs, videos, and Office docs in icon and gallery modes.

Source code with syntax highlighting

The right preview pane and Quick Look render code with full syntax highlighting for 14 languages, themed to match your accent.

Drop Stack shelf

Persistent strip above the status bar. Drag files in from any pane, navigate freely, then drag them out wherever they belong.

Batch rename

Live regex preview, conflict detection, and atomic apply. Built into the context menu and the command palette.

Browse + extract archives

Step into .zip, .tar.gz, .jar, .docx and more like a folder. Preview pane summarises the contents; "Extract here" drops the files into a sibling folder and jumps you in.

Content + regex search Soon

Beyond Spotlight: regex on filenames and full-text content search inside a folder.

Folder compare UI Soon

Diff two trees by name, size, mtime, or content hash. Engine ready; UI on the way.

Native SFTP / SMB / WebDAV Soon

First-class remote protocols built in — no rclone install or config required.

App Deleter Soon

Uninstall an app and find every leftover support file, preference, and cache it left behind.

The command palette

Core actions,
one fuzzy search away.

Hit ⌘K from anywhere. Type a few letters. Run any registered action, jump home, or open the terminal at the current path.

  • →New folder, new file, rename, move to trash.
  • →Toggle split pane, toggle preview pane, jump home.
  • →Open the current folder in Terminal.
  • →Keyboard navigation, Esc to dismiss, Enter to run.
› tras 
Recent
Move to trash recoverable ⌘⌫
New folder in active pane ⌘⇧N
Actions
New file in active pane ⌘N
Toggle split pane single ↔ dual ⌘\
Go home ~/ ⌘H
↑↓Navigate ↵Run ⎋Close
Local · Network · Cloud

One sidebar.
Every backend rclone speaks.

Mount S3, R2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, B2, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, SMB. Browse them with the same shortcuts, drag between them like local folders.

R2
r2:backups

Cloudflare R2 · us-east

1.2 TB / 5 TB connected
S3
s3:archives

Amazon S3 · eu-west-1

3.4 TB / ∞ connected
G
gdrive:work

Google Drive · personal

82 GB / 200 GB connected
SF
sftp:deploy

SFTP · prod-1.example.com

key auth idle
SMB
nas.local

SMB · 10.0.1.42

2 shares connected
D
dropbox:share

Dropbox · personal

14 GB / 2 TB connected

Requires rclone installed locally — brew install rclone.

Keyboard-first

Hands stay home row.

Every shortcut below is bound today. Discoverable, consistent, remappable in v0.7.

Navigation

⌘+K
Open command palette
Every shipped action, one fuzzy search away.
⇥
Switch active pane
Toggle focus left ↔ right.
⌘+H
Go home
Jump the active pane to ~/.

View

⌘+\
Toggle split pane
Single ↔ dual without losing context.
⌘+⌥+P
Toggle preview pane
Always-on Quick Look, but persistent.
⌘+⇧+.
Toggle hidden files
Dotfiles on/off, instantly.

Tabs

⌘+T
New tab
Open another folder side-by-side.
⌘+W
Close tab
Closes active tab; closes pane if last.

Files

⌘+⇧+N
New folder
Right where you stand.
⌘+N
New file
Empty file in the active pane.
↵
Rename
Inline editor on the selection.

Safety

⌘+⌫
Move to trash
Recoverable. Always.
␣
Quick Look
Spacebar previews like Finder.

Move & copy

drag
Move between panes
Default action — within a volume.
⌥+drag
Copy between panes
Hold ⌥ to copy instead of move.
Pricing · Early Access

Free for everyday. Pro for everything else.

The free tier is a complete macOS file manager. Pro unlocks cloud storage, batch rename, gallery view, hex viewer, and every power feature we ship from here on.

Free

A complete macOS file manager. Forever.

CHF 0forever
no account, no card
  • ✓Dual-pane, up to 2 tabs per pane
  • ✓Copy, move, rename, delete with conflict prompts
  • ✓Trash-first deletes, single-step undo
  • ✓Drop stack (up to 5 items)
  • ✓Search & filter, macOS Tags
  • ✓Quick Look, archive preview, single-archive extract
  • ✓Light & dark theme
Download free
Early Access price · Recommended

Pro — One-Time

Buy once, use forever. The version you receive keeps working — no time bombs.

CHF 99one-time
rises to 149 CHF at v1.0
  • ✓Cloud & network — S3, Drive, Dropbox, B2, OneDrive, WebDAV, SMB, SFTP, FTP
  • ✓Batch rename with regex, sequences, live preview
  • ✓Gallery view & hex viewer
  • ✓Honest transfers — pause, resume, crash-safe
  • ✓Compare folders, hash, checksum
  • ✓Multi-step undo, crash-recovery UI
  • ✓Unlimited tabs & windows, all themes
  • ✓12 months of updates included. The version you have keeps working forever. Renew at 49 CHF/year for the next year of updates.
Buy Pro — 99 CHF

Or subscribe: 60 CHF / year · 6 CHF / month

Heads up — this is honest beta software. Swift Salamander ships trash-first deletes, atomic writes, and conflict guards on purpose, but during Early Access we cannot accept legal liability for data loss — or, frankly, for any other consequence, up to and including your Mac spontaneously combusting, your cat refusing eye contact, or a sudden unexplained craving for fondue. Keep backups. Don't point it at the only copy of anything precious. Full terms at /terms.
Status

Where v0.7.3 stands.

Honesty matters more than a feature list. Below is what's working, what's about to land, and what's still ahead.

v0.7.3 Early Access

What works today

  • NewAdd Remote dialog renders as a proper modal — was unstyled and clipped into the main window.
  • NewFile preview: long content no longer hides the metadata and action buttons; gallery view shows a cleaner full-bleed preview.
  • NewStatus bar: transfers indicator is a clear pill with active/idle states; removed the misleading “Ready” label; static labels no longer show the text I-beam cursor.
  • NewFolders that are git repositories now show a “git” chip in the preview pane.
  • Free tier — every shipped feature stays free forever; no more trial-expired lock screen.
  • 14-day Pro trial on first launch — no card required, drops to Free at the end.
  • Pro unlocks cloud storage (S3, Drive, Dropbox, SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, B2, OneDrive, FTP), batch rename, gallery view, hex viewer, and the full transfer manager.
  • Pro pricing: 99 CHF one-time during Early Access (rises to 149 at v1.0), 60 CHF/year, or 6 CHF/month — paid via Polar.
  • Two file panes with independent tabs and history, Spotlight-style toolbar search, a ⌘K command palette, and a Drop Stack shelf for staging files across navigations.
  • Four view modes — List, Detailed, Icons, Gallery — with real first-page / first-frame thumbnails for PDFs, videos, and Office docs.
  • Quick Look on Space and a persistent preview pane: code with syntax highlighting, a hex view for binaries, and entry listings for archives.
  • File operations are trash-first and atomic. Cross-volume transfers hash-verify, conflicts get an honest replace / skip / keep-both / rename dialog, and ⌘Z undoes trash, duplicate, and rename.
  • Inline git status on every row, Finder tags grouped in the sidebar, archive browsing for zip / tar / tar.gz, and rclone wired up to Drive, S3, R2, SFTP, Dropbox, OneDrive, B2, WebDAV, FTP, and SMB.
  • Fast under the hood: macOS bulk-stat directory listing, an mtime-validated cache, and a crash-recoverable operation journal.
  • Signed and notarized by Apple, automatic updates with cryptographic verification, six accent hues, three density modes, and translations in English, German, Italian, and French.
v0.8 next

What's about to land

  • SoonNative SFTP, SMB, and WebDAV — first-class remote protocols built in, no rclone install required.
  • SoonFolder compare UI on top of the existing engine.
  • SoonContent and regex search inside files (beyond Spotlight).
  • SoonApp Deleter — uninstall an app with every leftover support file.
  • SoonSync browsing — mirrored navigation across both panes.
Early Access · Free + 14-day Pro trial

Try a calmer way to work with files.

Universal binary for Apple silicon & Intel · macOS 13 Ventura or newer. Free forever, with a 14-day Pro trial on first launch — no card required.

Download free See Pro
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