Everyone knows that the File Explorer Microsoft includes with Windows 11 is fine, but not much more than that. There are plenty of alternatives out there for those wanting to boost their productivity while browsing and managing their files, but I have to say my personal favorite remains File Pilot.

That's especially impressive considering File Pilot is still in beta, but it's just that good. An official paid release should happen sometime this year, but you can try the beta for free, and I have a few strong reasons why you should. I'm sure you'll fall in love with it, too.

5 Adjusting the view

It's so much smoother than it has any right to

Turning something completely mundane like changing the way files are listed in your file manager into something that's almost fun is no easy feat, but File Pilot does just that. And it does it while also enahncing how useful this feature is, which is an incredible achievement.

In File Pilot, file thumbnails are adjustable with a slider, which you can smoothly move up and down to change between list, detail, or column views, all the the way up to gigantic thumbnails that are almost big enough to fully enjoy a set of photos you may be looking at. The way File Pilot transitions across the different sizes is so smooth and responsive that it's almost like a fidget toy. I like just moving the slider up and down and seeing the files take up more or less space with super-smooth transitions.

Of course, this smoothness and responsiveness is more than just eye candy. It means you can easily adjust the view to anything you want so it's perfect for what you're working on. Using the typical File Explorer menu with its more rigid size options feels so much more clunky after trying this, especially because you have to open the menu each time you want to try a different view style. Seeing the changes in real time as you move the slider in File Pilot makes it that much easier to find just the right layout.

4 The inspector

Image previews look great

Much like File Explorer, File Pilot lets you preview a selected file through a dedicated pane, but the way File Pilot handles it is fantastic. Admittedly, it doesn't properly support a lot of formats. File Explorer can preview PDF files, Excel spreadsheets, and more, which File Pilot can't do (yet).

But File Pilot really comes out on top in a couple of key examples. For one thing, previewing folders. If you highlight a folder and turn on the inspector in File Pilot, you can view and browse the contents of that folder almost as if you had opened that folder. You can't interact with the contents of the folder from the inspector, but otherwise, it's just about as capable. For images, too, File Pilot is excellent. You can basically preview the full resolution image directly within the inspector, with the ability to zoom in and move around the image, and there's evena. helpful indicator that shows you the area of the image you're focused on.

Most document types are sadly not supported, but TXT files do preview as well, and you can see their full content and zoom in and out to change the text size. Adding support for more file types would be great, but I do love what File Pilot can do already.

3 Get to everything in a flash

The command bar is very helpful

I've become more and more of a keyboard user in recent months with tools like quick launchers, and File Pilot taps into that to make file management even faster. It comes with a command bar that you can quickly launch with a keyboard shortcut, and it's extremely helpful.

There are actually two separate bars. First, the "Jump to" bar, which is summoned with Ctrl + P, lets you type in the name of any folder on your PC to jump to it immediately. I'd argue this is the most useful of the two, and it makes it super easy to get to anything you want without having to touch your mouse. It helps that File Pilot is incredibly responsive, so you can find what you're looking for in a snap.

Then there's the actual command bar, which can be brought up by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P, and this lts you toggle or access certain features of the app. For example, you can enable the aforementioned inspector at any given time this way. You can toggle hidden files and system files, expand all the subfolders in your current view to see every single file individually in one view, open a new tab, and more. You can also set custom shortcuts for each of these commands, so you don't have to use the search bar if you don't want to, but having quick access to less common features through this centralized location is still fantastic.

2 Split view

Multitasking on a new level

Windows 11 may have introduced tab support for File Explorer, but that's nothing compared to what File Pilot can do. Of course, tab support is what you'd expect, and it's here and accounted for, which is great to see. But the real game changer is the split view File Pilot offers.

A few other File Explorer alternatives also have split views, but they're usually limited to two panels side-by-side, with some options like Q-Dir supporting four panels. File Pilot has no regard for limits like that. At any point, you can create a new split from your current view. You can split horizontally or vertically and as many times as you want, and File Pilot handles it all gracefully. This means you can view as many folders as you could want in one single view, in any layout you want. What's more, every panel can have its own file view settings, and you can even open the inspector for each one. Each panel also has its own set of tabs, so you can easily hop between any folders you may need at a given time.

There's no better way to describe the split view in File Pilot other than in just works in every way you could expect it to. There may be some practical limit due to performance issues at some point, but File Pilot lets you open just about as many folders as you could dream up in one single view, and it takes multitasking to a level that's just not possible with any other file manager.

1 Performance

It's so light and fast

Finally, the best thing about File Pilot is just how lightweight and fast it is. The latest version of the app comes in a tiny 1.8MB download, ad it's not one of those online installers or anything. All the files it needs are in this tiny package, so you can install this on any PC and not even notice a difference in available space.

But that's barely relevant compared to just how fast this app is, too. Everything in File Pilot feels incredibly smooth. Opening a folder, opening or closing a tab, creating a new split, bringing up the command bar, resizing the file thumbnails — it all happens instantly. Even searching files and folders has an instant and smooth response, it's almost hard to believe. You may not notice it right away, but put File Pilot and File Explorer side-by-side, and it's a night-and-day difference in terms of performance.

Actually, that's what I would normally say, but earlier this week, I was finally in a situation where File Pilot made a very tangible difference. I was trying to go through a large set of photos I had backed up from my camera. They were hundreds of RAW files totalling multiple gigabytes in size, and File Explorer was excruciatingly slow. After multiple minutes, it was still showing the loading icon, and even when I deleted files, the UI just wouldn't update to remove those files. It was a nightmare.

This was a laptop I hadn't touched in a while, so I decided to download File Pilot and — lo and behold — it was actually usable. This huge folder with a ton of files actually loaded just fine and I could preview all the files with no issues. I could easily select the files I didn't need and delete them, and I managed to filter down to the ones I did want to keep. It may seem like an exaggeration, but that task seemed legitimately impossible with File Explorer, so File Pilot was a true lifesaver that day. It can make a truly noticeable difference if you deal with large sets of files, and I recommend it now more than ever.

File Pilot is everything I wanted

There are a lot of File Explorer alternatives out there, yes, but if you ask me, none are as good as File Pilot. All those other options have benefits, and in some cases they offer more specific features that I know people find useful based on comments I've received on my articles.

But when it comes down to the core of managing files, there's just nothing as good as File Pilot. The incredible performance and smoothness, the multitasking capabilities, and the other little things it does so well make this an easy choice for anyone looking to speed up file management on their PC. It's just that good.

• File Pilot

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