Why should you use Ant Commander as File Manager?

Faster navigation

  • Ant Commander contains a lot of ways to access your files and folders faster.
    Here are a few examples:
    • Smart history: only directories where you spent a certain time are recorded in the history.
    • Add programs & files to toolbar: Just right click on a file and select Add to toolbar and you will be able to open your document or software from the toolbar from now on.
    • No need to go back and forth between directories or open several windows, just open a new tab if you want to access several directories at the same time.
    • If you have a directory with a lot of files, just type part of the file name and only the files & directories with this file name will be displayed.
    • You can save your configuration (panels & directories) in a different file. And it's easy to switch from one configuration to another one.

All in one toolbox

  • Ant Commander replaces a lot of tools that you would have to install and learn otherwise.
    Here are a few examples:
    • FTP client: you can use Ant Commander to FTP your files.
    • Unzip tool: you can use Ant Commander to unpack your files. Ant Commander support zip, jar, war,ear, tar, gz, bz2. You can also use Ant Commander to browse and preview the file in the archive without unpack it.
    • Image viewer and simple text editor: you need to preview an image or a text file or to make a small modification to a text file, just use Ant Commander.
    • SCP tool: you can use Ant Commander to secure copy files. Ant Commander supports SFTP and FTPS.
    • Launcher tool: add your favorites softwares and documents to the toolbar (See above).
    • Automation tool: if you need to perform regularly similar tasks, you can use Ant Commander for that (See below).

Open standard

  • Ant Commander is based on widely use open source libraries.
    Here are a few examples:
    • Apache Ant: with more than 100 tasks this will enable you to execute complicated tasks and to chain file operations.
      • For example if you want to copy a file only if another file exists and is more recent, this would be possible.
    • Commons-VFS: Access files wherever they are. If they are on another location you can still implement your own file system.
    • Java: The #1 development language in the world. You can also use it to extend Ant Commander.

More reasons

    • It's free even for commercial use.
    • It works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
    • Panels can be set always on top.
    • On the website you can always provide feedback if you are missing some features.