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Review: TotalFinder still bests Mavericks improvements

totalfinderOne constant in the universe has been complaints from OS X users about how little the Finder has advanced over the years. If you compare the Finder of OS 9 to that of Mountain Lion (10.8), there really aren’t any groundbreaking changes. A few Finder “replacements” have attempted to rectify this, but they are separate programs running alongside the OS X Finder. Programs like PathFinder and Forklift attempt to pile on a bunch of features on top of normal Finder-like functionality, which are useful, but unless you are willing to perform some technical voodoo on OS X, to force the system to use another program rather than the Finder, you end up bouncing between two different “Finders” because some things will only use the normal Finder. As appealing as some of these alternates are, I get annoyed having bounce between two programs.

Mavericks finally introduced tabs to the Finder, which had been a request from Mac users for years. Alas, that’s pretty much all Apple did with the Finder. Enter TotalFinder ($18) by binaryage, an extension that has added tabs since Lion. I didn’t even know you could add extensions to the Finder. As an extension, TotalFinder adds its new features by modifying the Finder itself, and even its preferences appear within the Finder’s own preferences window.

totalfinder_prefs

 

It also gives us a chance to return to the good ol’ days of colored sidebar icons.

 

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However, the best feature of them all, in my opinion, is the “Visor” feature which allows you to quickly slide your Finder window out of your way and back with just a key press. No more hunting for that buried Finder window, no closing and then reopening a Finder window, and since it adds tabs as well (no longer necessary in Mavericks) it keeps those tabs in the window, ready to access at any time. It’s one of those apps that always goes on all my computers, and not sure I could live without it (ok, I’d live but I would be seriously bummed). For you frequent Terminal users, check out their app TotalTerminal, which allows you to keep a Terminal window ready to slide out whenever you need it. TotalTerminal is free by the way. Seriously, try the 14 day demo of TotalFinder and tell me if you don’t fall in love with it.