# Views, columns, thumbnails and the folder tree

> Configurable columns or a thumbnail grid per panel, a flat view of a whole subtree, a sidebar with drives, WSL, servers and a folder tree, and Ctrl+F filtering.

- Canonical: https://cwdio.com/features/views-columns-and-thumbnails/
- Updated: 2026-08-15
- Product: Cwdio File Manager (cwdio) — https://cwdio.com

A cwdio panel is a detail list by default: name, size, date and type in columns you can change, resize and
reorder, with Explorer's own icons and real image thumbnails. The same rows can be shown as a grid of
tiles, flattened into a whole-subtree list, filtered as you type, or navigated from a folder tree that
also lists your drives, WSL distributions and saved servers.

## What it does

- **Configurable, resizable columns.** Name, extension, size, modified, created, type and attributes,
  toggled and ordered per panel (View ▸ Columns…). Drag a header edge to resize, double-click to reset,
  drag a header to reorder, right-click the header row to toggle a column. Sort by any sortable column;
  Folders first is on by default and can be turned off.
- **Grid (tile) view.** View ▸ Grid (tile) view swaps the list for tiles in three sizes; <kbd>Ctrl+=</kbd> and
  <kbd>Ctrl+-</kbd> step the size. Tiles show a real thumbnail, oversampled so a large tile stays sharp, plus a
  size · date subtitle. Left-drag on empty space rubber-band-selects; hold Ctrl to add to the selection.
- **Real icons and thumbnails.** Files and folders show the icon Explorer shows — Word, PDF, zip, and the
  distinctive Downloads/Pictures/drive icons — and local raster images show a thumbnail. Thumbnails are
  fetched only for visible rows, at most four at a time, paused while a folder is loading, and throttled to
  one at a time on a slow network drive, so they never fight your navigation.
- **Flat (branch) view.** <kbd>Ctrl+B</kbd> lists everything under the current folder as one flat list with a
  faint folder trail per row. Sort by size or date to find the biggest or newest file anywhere beneath.
- **Locations and the folder tree.** <kbd>Ctrl+Shift+E</kbd> opens the Locations panel: Quick access folders,
  drives (local, removable, network, optical and each installed WSL 2 distribution), saved SFTP/FTP servers
  with one-click reconnect, favourites and recents, over a drive-rooted folder tree that follows the active
  panel and expands lazily.
- **Quick filter.** <kbd>Ctrl+F</kbd> opens a filter bar on the focused panel and narrows it as you type, with
  regex and match-case toggles; <kbd>Esc</kbd> clears it. It is per panel — the other side is untouched.
- **Folder sizes on demand.** <kbd>Alt+Shift+Enter</kbd> fills in recursive totals for every folder in the panel;
  under a size sort with Folders first on, the folders reflow biggest-first as each total lands.
- **Hidden files, Explorer's way.** <kbd>Ctrl+H</kbd> shows hidden entries; protected operating-system files
  need a second, separate preference — the same two tiers Explorer uses.

## How to use it

1. Right-click the column header row and tick the columns you want; drag them into the order you read
   them in. Do it once per panel — it is remembered.
2. For a folder of photos, switch to grid view and press <kbd>Ctrl+=</kbd> until the tiles are large enough
   to recognise faces. Drag a band across the ones you want.
3. To find what is large under a project, press <kbd>Ctrl+B</kbd> and click the Size header. To see the folder
   totals in the ordinary list instead, press <kbd>Alt+Shift+Enter</kbd>.
4. Type a few letters with <kbd>Ctrl+F</kbd> to narrow a long folder to the rows that match; press
   <kbd>Esc</kbd> to see everything again.

## Drives, WSL and the folder tree

Drive discovery never blocks the panels: cwdio shows the drives it already knows and enumerates the full
set out of process, so a sleeping network drive cannot stall a listing. Removable drives appear and
disappear live. Installed WSL 2 distributions are listed as roots (`\\wsl.localhost\<distro>\`) and browse,
search and transfer like any other folder; recursive walks inside a distribution run natively in the
distro rather than through the slow 9P share. The folder tree in the Locations panel lists children on
first expand, auto-reveals the active panel's folder, and is fully keyboard-navigable (arrows, Home, End,
Enter); right-click a node for Open in other panel, Copy here, Move here, New folder and Add to favourites.

## What it deliberately does not do

- Icons for remote (`sftp://`) and in-archive rows come from a generic glyph — there is no local path for
  the shell to render, and cwdio does not stage bytes to get one.
- Thumbnails are for local raster images only. Video frames, PDF pages and folder collages are not
  generated.
- Flat view is not persisted: every launch starts with the ordinary shallow listing, so a slow recursive
  walk never starts by itself.

## Related

- [Dual panes, tabs and the workspace](/features/dual-pane-and-tabs/) — where the panels and the Locations sidebar live.
- [Search](/features/search/) — the recursive search that flat view complements.
- [Size map](/features/size-map/) — the treemap when folder totals are not enough.

## Frequently asked questions

**Which columns can the list show?** Name is always first; the others are extension, size, modified, created, type and attributes (the read-only/hidden R/H markers). View ▸ Columns… toggles and reorders them per panel, every header except Name has a drag handle to resize (double-click resets), headers drag to reorder, and right-clicking the header row toggles a column in one click.

**What is flat (branch) view?** Ctrl+B flattens the whole subtree under the current folder into one list, each row showing its relative path — Total Commander's branch view. Every row is a real file, so you can sort by size to find the biggest file anywhere below, then copy, move, delete or open it in place. It is a per-panel, per-session mode; a restart starts shallow again.

**Are the thumbnails real, and can I turn them off?** Yes and yes. Local PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, WebP and ICO files show a real thumbnail in the list and larger ones in grid view; everything else shows Explorer's own icon for that file type or folder. View ▸ Image thumbnails switches thumbnails off entirely, which is the right choice for a synced cloud folder where reading each photo would cost a download.

**How does hidden-file handling compare with Explorer?** It matches Explorer exactly, in two tiers: Ctrl+H shows files with the HIDDEN attribute; a second preference, Show protected operating-system files, is needed for HIDDEN+SYSTEM entries. On Windows a dotfile such as .gitignore is not hidden — Explorer shows it and so does cwdio — while .git, which Git marks HIDDEN, stays out of the way.