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Everyday Workflows

Combine the panes, selection tools and commands to finish a task. Open Command Center with Ctrl+Shift+P for commands without shortcuts.

Release Availability

Pattern previews in the first workflow require an Unreleased development build. On a released build, mark files with Space instead. See feature availability.

Which Items Will Change?

Term Meaning
Cursor / highlighted item The row reached with the arrow keys. QuickView uses this item, even when others are marked.
Committed marks The applied pane selection. Built-in Copy/Move use these items; with no marks, they use the cursor item.
Preview marks A proposed Select/Deselect-by-pattern result. Enter applies it; Esc keeps the original marks. Other commands cancel the preview and use committed marks.
Filtered table rows Results left after narrowing a search table. They are not pane marks or a bulk Copy/Move/Delete selection.

"Visible" means passing the current filters, not just fitting on screen. Scrolling does not exclude items from a group.

Commands can use different targets. Generate checksum file uses the whole current folder when nothing is marked; it does not fall back to the cursor. Check the command's guide before acting on a group.

Copy A Particular Group

  1. Open the source and destination in opposite panes. In the source, press Ctrl+D to clear old marks.
  2. Run Select by pattern and enter *.pdf$. Review the preview, then press Enter to commit. report.pdf matches; report.pdf.bak does not.
  3. Press F5, check the proposed destination and confirm. Only the committed group is copied. A folder with a matching name can be part of that group too.

See illustrated selection and F5/F6 versus Robocopy.

Rename An Ordered Subset

  1. Mark the regular files in one local folder. Run Batch File Renamer.
  2. Sort Original Name or File Date, then filter the source columns to keep only the files you want. Filtered-out files will not be renamed.
  3. Enter {(index + 1):03d}_{name}{ext}. Review New Name and Valid Name. The first visible report.txt becomes 001_report.txt.
  4. Press Enter to rename the visible results, or Esc to cancel.

Keep {ext} to retain extensions. Invalid or occupied names block the rename; there is no automatic undo. See templates and limits.

Find Large, Old Files

  1. Open the folder to search and press Shift+F7 for Find files with fd.
  2. Set Name Pattern to *.log in Glob mode, Min size to 100 Mega Bytes and End date to 2026-09-30. Enable Recursive, then Search.
  3. Sort results by Size or narrow the Modified column. On a path cell, press Ctrl+Enter to open its folder and highlight that one file.

This finds logs of at least 100 MB modified on or before the chosen date. It does not mark all search results in the pane. See Find with fd.

Find And Edit Matching Content

  1. Open the project folder and press Alt+F7. Set File Name Pattern to *.ini in Glob mode and Content Pattern to fonts in Literal mode.
  2. Enable Recursive and Extended, then Search. Narrow results using Size, Date Modified or the text filter.
  3. Press Ctrl+Enter on a File Path cell. In the pane, use Ctrl+Q to inspect the file. Close QuickView with Ctrl+Q, then press F4 to edit.

Set up the editor once before using F4. Search results show matching lines; navigating opens the file's folder, not an editor at that line. See Search Files.

Verify A Delivery

  1. In the source folder, clear any pane filter with Esc and ensure hidden files are shown (toggle with Ctrl+. if needed). Clear marks with Ctrl+D. Run Generate checksum file, choose SHA256 and save the manifest there. With no marks, generation covers the current folder recursively, including hidden files.
  2. Select the data and manifest with Ctrl+A and copy them with F5 into an empty destination folder in the other pane. Keep the relative folder layout.
  3. In the destination, highlight the manifest and run Verify checksum file. Inspect the summary and any problem rows.

Verification checks the manifest's entries, not files absent from it. Generate the manifest after renaming: later name changes invalidate its recorded paths. See Checksum Files.

Compare Two Versions

  1. Configure Set file comparator once, choosing an installed program.
  2. Highlight one file in each pane and clear old marks in both. Run Compare files. Alternatively, mark exactly two files in the active pane to compare that pair instead.
  3. To compare folder trees, open one folder in each pane and run Compare folders. It uses the pane locations, not highlighted child folders.

The external program controls its views and edits; no automatic synchronization is performed. See comparator setup.

For folder totals before choosing what to transfer, see one-time versus automatic directory sizes.