Open the folder.
Know the edges.

01 · Setup

Install and open

1. Download the disk image from the download page.
2. Open it and drag Linelark Finder++ into Applications.
3. Eject the image, then open the app from Applications or Spotlight.

The build is Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized, with the notarization ticket stapled to the image, so there is no right-click-to-open step and no security warning to click past.

There is no automatic update yet. When a new beta is published, download the newer image and replace the app; the beta log says what changed.

02 · Start

First run

The window opens on your home folder with the sidebar on the left, the file view in the middle and the path trail along the bottom. From 0.5.0 it reopens where you left off instead — the last real folder, the view mode, and which panels were open.

The first time you open a folder macOS protects — Desktop, Documents, Downloads, or a removable volume — the system asks whether to allow it. That prompt is macOS, not this app. Declining only hides that folder from the app; nothing else changes and you can grant it later in System Settings.

03 · Look

The four views

⌘1 Icons · ⌘2 List · ⌘3 Columns · ⌘4 Gallery, or the segmented control in the toolbar. Folders sort before files, then by name, using the system’s own ordering.

• Icon and Gallery draw Quick Look previews of the files themselves rather than the generic type icon. A file is thumbnailed once and shared between the two, so switching does not regenerate what is on screen.
• In the list view, click Name, Date Modified or Size to sort by that column and click again to reverse it. Navigating somewhere new resets to the natural order; reloading the folder you are in keeps your sort.
• ⇧⌘. shows hidden files in the file views. The sidebar’s tree does not answer to it, so a favourite’s chevron still reflects only its visible contents.
• Space Quick Looks the selection, Escape closes it.

04 · Move

Getting somewhere

Browse with the sidebar, the Back and Forward buttons, or ⌘[ and ⌘]. Double-click a folder to enter it and a file to open it in its default app.

The path bar is a control

The trail at the foot of the window walks up the folders you are inside. Click a crumb to jump there, or right-click one to copy its path, reveal it in Finder, point the terminal panel at it, add it to the sidebar, or open it in a second Finder++.

Click the trail anywhere the crumbs are not, or press ⌘L, and it becomes a field holding the current path. Names complete against the disk as you type, so a path can be found rather than remembered. Return goes there, Escape puts the crumbs back. ⇧⌘G still opens the Go to Folder prompt.

Completions arrive without a trailing separator on purpose: typing the separator is how you say you want to go deeper, and completing it for you would mean deleting it again first.

The sidebar

Drag any folder into Favorites to keep it, reorder them by dragging, and rename what a favourite is called without touching the folder. A chevron expands a favourite in place, so you can drill into it without changing what the main view is showing. ⌘B toggles the sidebar.

05 · Find

Filter and search

These are two different things and the difference matters.

⌘F puts the keyboard in the toolbar field. Typing there filters the folder on screen by name, on every keystroke. Emptying the field puts the folder back. Nothing leaves the folder you are in.

A list drops below the field offering the searches filtering cannot answer: names or contents, in this folder’s tree or across the whole Mac, plus the kind of file the word suggests. ↑ ↓ move through them, Return runs the highlighted one, Escape puts the list away.

06 · Act

Moving files safely

This is the part to read before pointing a beta at files you care about.

Cut and move

Control-X or ⌘X marks the selection for moving and Control-V moves it into the current folder; ⌥⌘V does the same. Cut items appear faded, and Escape cancels a pending cut while the file view has focus. ⌘X still cuts text as usual while a field is being edited — the file shortcut only claims the keystroke when nothing is.

A cut is internal to this app rather than the system clipboard, and files stay where they are until you paste. An existing name at the destination is never overwritten; that item stays pending instead.

Drag and drop

Dragging works in the list and icon views only — not the gallery filmstrip, not the column browser. It is always a move, the same as ⌥⌘V. There is no Option-to-copy modifier yet.

What undo covers

⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z reverse a move, a rename, a New Folder and a Move to Trash. They do not reverse a copy, a duplicate, a compress or a Make Alias — those are done when they are done.

Undoing a New Folder trashes it rather than deleting it outright, so anything put in it since creation goes with it; redo makes a fresh empty one rather than trying to restore what undo just trashed.

Long operations

A move or copy large enough to be worth watching runs off the main thread with a determinate count and a Cancel button. Quitting while one is in flight asks first rather than silently refusing. Cross-volume moves use Foundation’s move operation — this is not a resumable transfer engine.

The rest of the menu

⇧⌘N new folder · Return rename · ⌘D duplicate · ⌘⌫ move to Trash · ⌘C / ⌘V copy and paste · ⌘A select all · ⌘R refresh. In the list view, Rename edits the name in place with the extension left alone; the other views open a dialog.

07 · Shell

The terminal panel

Control-` opens a shell below the file list, started in the directory on screen with your own login shell. It is a real shell, not a simulated command box: commands have exactly the access and the consequences they would have in Terminal.app.

Change folder in the browser and restart the panel to follow it, or right-click a crumb in the path trail and point the terminal at that folder directly.

The folder view watches the disk, so a file written by a command in this panel appears above it within about half a second.

08 · Agents

Claude and Codex

A right-hand dock runs the claude and codex commands already installed on your Mac, each started in the folder being browsed and each restartable on its own.

• Neither is bundled. The app ships no copy of either tool and carries no account of its own — it runs what is on your PATH, as you, with your own credentials.
• If a command is not installed, that panel says so rather than failing silently.
• They are optional. The browser and the terminal work whether or not either is present.

09 · Understand

Rows that are queries

Several sidebar rows look like folders and are not. Knowing which is which explains most of the app’s surprising behaviour.

Recents, Shared and each tag row are Spotlight queries — the same ones Finder’s own rows are built on. The app therefore keeps no history of its own and records nothing when you open a file.

• Each is read when you open it and re-read on ⌘R, not continuously like a folder.
• Nothing can be created in one or pasted into one.
• Recents shows at most the 500 most recent files; Shared and each tag at most 1000 items.
• If Spotlight is off, or a volume is not indexed, the list is simply empty.

The Trash and Full Disk Access

~/.Trash sits behind Full Disk Access, and no app can ask for that permission — you grant it in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Full Disk Access or not at all.

Without it, the Trash row hands the Trash to Finder. With it, the row lists the Trash like any other folder — and only this Mac’s, not the .Trashes of every mounted volume that Finder merges into one row.

What is deliberately missing

There are no AirDrop or Network rows. Neither is a folder, neither has a public API, and the URLs Finder’s own rows once opened are ignored on current macOS — so the app offers no row that would do nothing. Sending files by AirDrop still works from Share… in the contextual menu.

10 · Keyboard

Every shortcut

Command shortcuts inside the path field, the search field and an inline rename keep their normal text-editing behaviour.

11 · Edges

What it will not do

The same list the product page carries, in one place, because the useful question about a beta is what it still cannot do.

• Undo covers move, rename, New Folder and Move to Trash — not copy, duplicate, compress or Make Alias.
• Drag and drop works in the list and icon views only, and is always a move.
• A cut is internal to the app; an existing name at the destination is never overwritten.
• Search results are capped at 1000 files and cannot be written into.
• Recents, Shared and the tags are Spotlight queries, re-read on ⌘R only.
• The Trash usually opens in Finder unless you have granted Full Disk Access.
• No AirDrop or Network rows.
• Cross-volume moves are not resumable.
• “Open in New Finder++” launches a second copy of the app, not a second window. Both share Favorites through the same preferences, so whichever changes them last wins.
• There is no automatic update; new betas are downloaded by hand.
• It does not replace Finder and does not integrate as a Finder substitute.

12 · Resolve

Troubleshooting

The Trash row opens Finder instead of listing anything.

That is the expected behaviour without Full Disk Access, which no app can request. Grant it in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Full Disk Access and the row lists the Trash in place.

Recents, Shared or a tag row is empty.

All three are Spotlight queries. If the index is off, still building, or the volume is not indexed, there is nothing to return. Nothing is wrong with the folder itself.

A folder I know exists is not in the list.

It may be hidden. Press ⇧⌘. to show hidden files. If it is inside Desktop, Documents, Downloads or a removable volume, macOS may be withholding it — check Privacy & Security.

The Claude or Codex panel says the command is missing.

The app runs the claude and codex already installed on your Mac and bundles neither. Install the one you want and make sure a login shell finds it on PATH.

A search returned fewer results than I expected.

Search results are capped at 1000 files, and content searches depend entirely on what Spotlight has indexed.

I cannot paste into what I am looking at.

You are looking at a query rather than a folder — a search result, Recents, Shared or a tag. Navigate to a real folder first.

My Favorites changed on their own.

A second Finder++ is a second copy of the app sharing the same preferences. Whichever instance changed them last wins.

Something else went wrong.

It is a beta and reports are the point. Send one with your macOS version, your Mac, the steps and what happened instead.