Being able to navigate your local filesystem is an important function of personal computing. File managers have come a long way since early directory editors like DIRED. While they aren’t cutting-edge technology, they are essential software to manage any computer.
File management consists of creating, opening, renaming, moving / copying, deleting and searching for files. But file managers also frequently offer other functionality.
In the field of desktop environments, there are two desktops that dominate the open source landscape: KDE and GNOME. They are smart, stable, and generally stay out of the way. These use the widget toolkits Qt and GTK respectively. And there are many excellent Qt and GTK file managers available.
There are also a wide range of graphical non-Qt and non-Gtk file managers available. This article examines 10 such file managers. The quality is remarkably good.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is included.
Click the links in the table below to learn more about each file manager.
| Graphical File Managers (Non-Qt, Non-GTK) | |
|---|---|
| Spacedrive | File manager powered by a virtual distributed filesystem |
| Xfe | MS-Explorer or Commander like file manager for X |
| muCommander | File manager with a dual-pane interface |
| Cloud Commander | Cloud file manager with console and editor |
| Xplorer | Modern file explorer written in TypeScript |
| trolCommander | Fork of muCommander |
| Sigma File Manager | Quickly evolving, modern file manager |
| TkDesk | Tcl/Tk-based file manager |
| System G | File manager with git support |
| Worker | File manager in the style of Amiga’s DirOpus |
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |
You forgot to add Xplorer to the list.
Yes, apologies for the oversight. We reviewed this file manager back in October 2023.
This roundup has been updated to include Xplorer.
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