Features

Every feature, one page each

What cwdio does, in 19 pages: dual panes with a terminal that follows you, transfers you can trust, search, remote servers, archives, previews, git, and an undo that covers all of it. Every one ships in the free beta.

cwdio opens as two plain folder panels and stays that simple until you ask for more. Everything below is already installed and switched off until you reach for it — nothing to add, nothing to configure. Each page says what the feature does, how to open it, its default shortcut, and what it deliberately does not do.

Navigate

Ctrl+` Terminal sync — the panel and the shell always agree Navigate a panel and the terminal follows; type cd and the panel follows. Multiple shells, each tracking its own pane — including over SSH. Ctrl+T Dual panes, folder tabs and a dockable workspace Two panels, folder tabs per panel, tool windows that dock or collapse to an edge, layout presets, multiple windows, dark and light themes. Ctrl+B Views, columns, thumbnails and the folder tree Configurable columns, grid view with real thumbnails and Explorer's own icons, flat branch view, folder tree, quick filter, folder sizes, hidden files, drives and WSL. Ctrl+/ Command palette, keyboard model and the command line A fuzzy palette that lists every command with its chord, orthodox F-keys plus developer chords, rebinding, Ctrl+P go-to-file, Ctrl+J frecency jump, favourites, and a command line under the panels.

Move & protect

F5 Transfers you can trust: verified copies, a queue that survives F5/F6 through a queue: verified copies, resume after a disconnect, a journal that survives a restart, per-file skip and retry, taskbar progress, an Operations drawer with history. Ctrl+Z Undo and the safety net that is on by default Delete to the Recycle Bin, a stash for every overwritten file, Ctrl+Z for a whole batch (including the AI's), redo, a file-event history, and a locked-file dialog. Alt+Enter Checksums, split and combine Hash a file in Properties and paste the published hash to check it; export and verify checksum manifests; split a large file into volumes and rejoin them.

Organise

Shift+F2 Bulk rename with a live preview Find/replace and regex, counters, case, crop, prefix/suffix, EXIF and audio-tag tokens, saved recipes, AI suggestions — a live old→new table, conflicts flagged, one undo. Ctrl+Shift+S Compare two folders and sync them Update, mirror or two-way sync between the two panels with a dry-run plan first; compare by content; per-row direction; exclude masks; plus a side-by-side file diff. Duplicate finder that acts safely Groups genuinely identical files (size, then hash), keeps one per group by your rule, deletes the rest to the Recycle Bin or hard-links them — with undo. Ctrl+Shift+T Size map: see what is eating your disk A treemap of the folder with live scanning, drill-in, delete-in-place and a copyable report; a Reclaim view for build artefacts; per-folder totals in the list.

Find & look inside

Ctrl+Shift+F Search — by name, inside files, or by meaning Name search, gitignore-aware content grep, optional semantic search. Results are live rows: F5/F6/F8/F2/F4 work on them. Space Quick Look — press Space to look inside anything Space previews images, video, audio, PDF, CSV tables, JSON trees, Markdown with diagrams, code and diffs — in place, read-only. F4 Edit text with F4 — built-in editor or your own F4 opens the built-in quick editor or your external editor; saves keep encoding and line endings, never clobber, and are undoable.

Connect

Remote servers as folders — SFTP, FTP and FTPS SFTP, FTP and FTPS mount as folders; transfers use the queue; a real SSH shell shares the connection; credentials stay OS-encrypted. Archives — ZIP, 7z, RAR and tar open like folders Browse ZIP, 7z, RAR and tar as folders, including password-protected ones; pack to ZIP, 7z, tar.gz. Nothing extra to install. Ctrl+C Windows integration — Explorer menu, clipboard, drag, tray Explorer context-menu entry, OS clipboard and drag interop, drives + WSL, tray with a summon hotkey, Recycle Bin by default — per user, no admin.

Develop

Ctrl+Shift+G Git in the file list — status, changes, branches, history Status badges in the file list, a changes view with stage/commit/stash, a branch switcher, a history view with patches, and fetch/pull/push. Ctrl+Alt+B The AI assistant — reads freely, changes only with your OK Bring your own key. Read tools run freely; every change is a proposal you confirm and can undo. AI rename, organise, folder insight, semantic search, MCP server and client.

Looking for how-to guides instead? Start with Getting started or the keyboard shortcuts. Wondering how this compares with what you use today? See the comparisons.

Questions

What is cwdio?

cwdio (Cwdio File Manager) is a free, keyboard-first, dual-pane file manager for Windows 10 and 11, built for developers and for anyone who moves a lot of files. Its defining feature is two-way working-directory sync: navigate a file panel and the built-in terminal follows; type cd in the terminal and the panel follows. Around that sit verified transfers with a queue that survives a restart, search inside files, SFTP/FTP servers browsed as folders, archives opened as folders, bulk rename, a disk size map, a duplicate finder, folder compare-and-sync, previews with the space bar, git integration and an optional AI assistant.

Does it have tabs?

Yes. Each panel holds folder tabs — Ctrl+T opens one, Ctrl+W closes it, Ctrl+Tab cycles — and the whole layout (panels, terminals, tool windows) is a dockable workspace you can rearrange and reset to the default with one command.

Do the Total Commander keys work?

The orthodox set does: F5 copy, F6 move, F7 new folder, F8 and Delete delete, F2 rename, F3 view, F4 edit, Alt+F1/Alt+F2 for the drive lists, Ctrl+U to swap panels, Ctrl+B for the flat branch view, and the numpad +, − and * selection keys. Developer-audience chords sit beside them: Ctrl+P go-to-file, Ctrl+Shift+F search, Ctrl+Shift+P command palette. Every shortcut can be rebound.

Which archive formats does it handle?

It opens ZIP, 7z, RAR and tar archives (including .tar.gz) as ordinary folders, with the readers built in, so nothing extra needs installing. Password-protected ZIP (classic ZipCrypto) and RAR archives can be opened with their password; AES-encrypted ZIP entries and encrypted 7z archives are listed but not extracted. It creates ZIP, 7z and tar.gz archives from a selection. RAR is read-only, as it is everywhere outside WinRAR.

How does search work?

By name instantly, or by content inside files, skipping the build output your .gitignore already lists. If the free Everything search engine (voidtools) is installed, name search uses its index and is effectively instant across the whole drive; without it, cwdio walks the folder itself. Results are real rows: copy, move, rename or delete straight from them.

Which shells does the terminal support?

The shells you actually have, discovered the way Windows Terminal discovers them: PowerShell and Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, one profile per installed WSL distribution, Git Bash, and Visual Studio's developer prompts when Visual Studio is installed. Each terminal is a real PTY, so anything that runs in a terminal runs here.

How does the terminal know where the panel is — and vice versa?

Through the same shell-integration mechanism modern terminals use (the OSC 7 working-directory report): when the shell changes directory it tells the terminal, and cwdio moves the panel; when you navigate the panel, cwdio sends the shell a cd. It works over SSH too, so a remote shell and a remote panel stay in step the same way.

Do I have to use the terminal?

No. The terminal is a pane you open when you want it (Ctrl+` toggles it) and never see otherwise. cwdio is a complete file manager without it.

What can I undo?

A whole batch at once with Ctrl+Z: a copy, a move (each item goes back to its own original folder), a rename of hundreds of files, a new folder, an overwrite (the replaced file was stashed, so it comes back), and anything the AI assistant did through the same queue. Deletes are deliberately not on the undo stack: they go to the Recycle Bin instead, where Windows can restore them. The queue is journaled, so an operation interrupted by a crash or a dropped drive can resume rather than start again.

Where are my server passwords stored?

On your machine, encrypted by Windows through the operating system's own credential protection, and never uploaded anywhere. SSH host keys are trusted on first use and remembered; a host whose key later changes is refused rather than silently accepted.