An extremely fast, keyboard-driven two-pane file manager for macOS, written in Rust. Source-available, free forever for personal use. With fully optional, privacy-first AI features.
Cmdr is for folks who love a rock-solid, keyboard-driven, two-pane file manager with a modern UI in 2026. Like Total Commander, but on macOS.
Give it a try: download for macOS, or install with Homebrew:
brew tap vdavid/tap && brew trust --cask vdavid/tap/cmdr && brew install --cask cmdrThe brew trust step is new in Homebrew 6: it asks you to okay any third-party tap once before it runs. Cmdr's tap is
one of those for now.
Note: If you'd love a nice short brew install --cask cmdr, star this repo! Once it hits 225 stars, Homebrew
lets it into its main tap.
I (David, the dev) loved Total Commander on Windows, used it for 20+ years. Then I switched to macOS, and my biggest pain point about the OS was a fast, rock-solid, and pleasant file manager. Cmdr intends to fix this.
Then there is AI. With LLMs, some really cool features became possible that never were. I'm experimenting with adding these features gradually. But the intention is that AI features remain fully optional. With AI features off, you've got a Total Commander-like experience. With it, you get natural-language search and smart selection, with smart renaming and (human-approved!) auto-organization coming soon. AI features are local-by-default, so no files or other data leave your Mac.
Core features:
- Two-pane layout: see two folders side by side.
- Keyboard-first: do anything without touching your mouse, using your familiar shortcuts.
- Blazing fast file operations: copy, move, rename, and delete with a few keystrokes.
- Optional, privacy-first AI: search and select with natural language, all on your Mac.
- Easy on the eyes: real dark and light modes, and every text color is verified against both WCAG 2.2 AA and APCA, the modern perceptual contrast method, so nothing falls below APCA Lc 45.
Download it from getcmdr.com, or install with Homebrew:
brew tap vdavid/tap && brew trust --cask vdavid/tap/cmdr && brew install --cask cmdrThe brew trust step is Homebrew 6's new safety gate: it has you okay a third-party tap once before it runs any code. A
star, watch, or fork on the repo helps Cmdr reach Homebrew's notability bar (225
stars), which unlocks a tap-free, trust-free brew install --cask cmdr.
Windows and Linux users: sorry, you'll need to wait. The Rust+Tauri stack allows for cross-platform deployment, but the app uses OS-specific features by nature, so I've only had time to write and test it on macOS for now.
Launch Cmdr and start navigating:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Tab |
Switch between panes |
↑ ↓ |
Navigate files |
Enter |
Open file/folder |
F5 |
Copy |
F6 |
Move |
F7 |
Create folder |
F8 |
Delete |
Cmdr is built with Rust and Tauri for the backend, and Svelte with TypeScript for the frontend. This gives it native performance with a modern, responsive UI.
Cmdr is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1.
Use Cmdr for free on any number of machines for personal, non-commercial projects. No nags, no trial timers, no restrictions.
For work projects, you'll need a license:
- $59/year: subscription, auto-renews
- $199 one-time: perpetual license
Purchase at getcmdr.com/pricing.
For OpenAI Build Week, I worked with Codex to build a natural-language bulk-rename feature incl. renaming images based on their content, and a UI for humans to review and apply the rename suggestions. I worked in one long, continuous session, mainly using Terra (high) and some Sol (medium), from feature planning through PR #39. I brought my existing codebase and guardrails, picked the scope, the plan review process, the UX direction, and what to accept during manual QA. Codex turned those decisions into the spec/pland then the impl. It delegated plan reviews, translations, and pieces of the implementation to subagents, diagnosed failures from logs, wrote tests, then prepared the PR and docs. The bulk of the submission-window work is the natural-language bulk rename feature, but it also needed an MCP extension, a tweak to add an OpenAI-compatible provider, streaming-state, copyability, localization, and operation-safety changes in the PR, so it came out pretty complex. Mind that Codex did not build the rest of Cmdr itself: the file manager, the built-in chat, image index, MCP infra, and ops engine all existed before Build Week. The evidence and collaboration record are in docs/hackathon-submission.md.
To run the submission without building from source, download Cmdr v0.35.0 from getcmdr.com, configure an AI provider, open a folder or select files, and ask Cmdr to rename them. Review the proposed rows, change the Allow/Deny choices, and apply the accepted subset; use disposable files for evaluation. The exact submitted code, scope, and validation record are in PR #39.
The source becomes AGPL-3.0 after 3 years (rolling per release). Until then, you can view, modify, and learn from the code, but not use it commercially without a license.
Contributions are welcome! Report issues and feature requests in the issue tracker.
By submitting a contribution, you agree to license your contribution under the same terms as the project (BSL 1.1, converting to AGPL-3.0) and grant the project owner the right to use your contribution under any commercial license offered for this project.
Happy browsing!
David