Total Commander has been the preferred file manager for many users for decades. It is not surprising that he was the inspiration for many clones.
muCommander is one of them and turns out to be an open source alternative. The program is available for macOS, Windows and Linux.
Here is a comparison of the Total Commander and muCommander interfaces. The graphical interface of the latter is perhaps a little more pleasant for the eyes, this is probably due to the theme and the icons of the toolbar.
But it’s the features that are important. muCommander has a two-part interface, of course. You can switch to a horizontal view from the Window menu. Not a fan of the two-part view? Switch to single pane mode. An optional tree can also be activated. An address bar is available at the top of each pane, to the left of which is a drive selector menu button.
There are five columns displayed in the interface: Extensions (which is the icon column on the left edge), file name, size, date, permissions. These can be toggled from the Show / Hide columns of the View menu. Drag and drop a column to rearrange the order.
Right-clicking inside the interface brings up a context menu used to open files in their default manager, or to load the location in Explorer. You can also use the menu to copy files, or just file names, base names, or file paths. Do you work with a bunch of files or folders? Use the check and uncheck options, there is also check and deselect everything. A useful feature here is the “Edit Permissions” options which allow you to set read, write and executable permissions for each file and folder on a per user or group basis.
The program has a built-in archiving tool that you can use to package ZIP, TAR, GZip, BZip2 formats. Unpacking support includes 7z, RAR among other popular formats. The File menu includes a check value checking tool, a file separator and joiner, and a batch renaming utility.
The application remembers the previous session and opens the last files consulted when you restart it. This behavior can be changed in Preferences. muCommander can be used to configure and connect to your FTP, SMB, SFTP, S3, HTTP, HDFS, NFS, VSPHERE servers. You can also email files directly from the app. Bookmarks can be added for quick access to your favorite folders.
The command bar at the bottom displays certain functions that you can access, these can also be used using the shortcut keys F3-F10. muCommander has an integrated text and image viewer accessible from the command bar or the F3 key. There is also an internal editor, but this only works with text files.
The Refresh button on the command bar is an additional option that most file managers do not have. Speaking of which, you can customize the bottom bar in the View menu and there are a multitude of shortcuts to choose from.
The program offers a selection of themes, including a retro theme similar to Norton Commander, a dark theme and certain styles of sub-themes.
muCommander is compatible with the keyboard and there are many shortcuts that you can use and customize. The program requires running Java. The Linux version is quite identical to the Windows version.
Although the current version was updated a year ago, the developer has worked on it and recently hinted that a new version will be available soon.
Among the many clones of Total Commander, muCommander is one of the best.
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Software name
muCommander
Operating system
Windows, Linux, macOS
Software Category
Productivity
Price
Free
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