Hands-on: HiFile is a cross-platform file manager with some problems

If there’s one thing macOS and Windows have in common, it’s the fact that the included file manager is not ideal. While both File Explorer and Finder have their pros and cons compared to each other, both have better alternatives. Most of those alternatives are platform-specific, but HiFile is an interesting exception.

HiFile is a file manager that runs on macOS, Windows, and even Linux, providing a consistent experience across platforms. It’s a pretty solid experience, though considering it’s a paid app on both Windows 11 and macOS (the Linux version is fully free), it’s not quite where it should be. It was recommended to me by one our readers when I listed the best Finder replacements on macOS, but I don’t think it can dethrone the top picks on that list.

A dual-pane view and tab support

What every file manager needs to have

If you’ve ever looked at alternative file managers on either Windows or macOS, you’ll know that a major feature in almost all of them is the ability to use a dual-pane view to manage your files. This makes it much easier to move files around and manage them. without having to have multiple windows open, so it’s definitely a plus here, though it’s not exactly a unique selling point for HiFile. It does help greatly, but other options do the same.

HiFile also supports tabs, but the way they’re implemented is very different from what I’d expect. When you press the keyboard shortcut to create a new tab, a tab is created for the current folder you’re in, and that tab appears at the top of the screen. So, in essence, a new tab isn’t created, but your current location is saved as a tab of sorts at the top of the screen. You can then navigate anywhere you want, and use the “tab” to return to the folder you were in when you created said tab. I can see how this might be useful, but it’s definitely a behavior you have to get used to before it works the way you’d want it to.

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There’s some customization

But not a ton

Many file managers pride themselves in offering customization options that let you make the experience work best for you, and HiFile is no different, though I would say the customization options here are a bit too limited. You can customize some of the icons in the toolbar, and whether to place some of those icons in the main toolbar or in the toolbar above each of the panes, which is legitimately a nice feature to have. But the buttons you can customize are very few, and with the icons being so small and hard to decipher, it makes the experience a bit more convoluted than I’d like at first.

One thing I do like is that HiFile lets you choose whether to display items as a list or as thumbnails, and it saves your preference for each folder, so you can always see every folder in the way that you prefer it. I wish you could also resize the thumbnails themselves like some alternative file managers do, but this is a good foundation to have.

HiFile also comes with a wide range of themes built-in, which is nice to see. All the themes are available on both macOS and Windows, and they look pretty good on both. It’s not the most visually striking app out there, but it doesn’t need to be.

This app is also designed to be a keyboard-first file manager, so learning all the shortcuts you can use should make file management a bit easier. You can fully customize the shortcuts for all the available actions, which is great to see.

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It has a few too many problems

Especially on macOS

As much as HiFile has in its favor, it also has too many glaring issues, which vary in severity. One thing I don’t like is how selecting multiple files doesn’t highlight all of them in the same way, like other file managers do. Instead, when selecting multiple files, the selected files change their font color to indicate they’ve been selected. This, however, took me a while to understand, and I think I might be marking the files for some specific feature I didn’t know about yet.

What’s more, acting on multiple files with the mouse doesn’t work properly or consistently most of the time. Having a dual-pane view should make it easier to move files from one pane to the other, but most of the time, when I click a file and try to drag it, it just ends up selecting or deselecting files as I move the mouse. Sometimes I actually manage to drag the files I want, but I’m not fully sure yet what I’m supposed to do to make it work properly.

If that’s not concerning enough, I’ve also had issues when using my SD card to move files to my Mac Mini. For some reason, when I take a new photo and try to move it, it often fails to move, displaying an error message that gives me nothing to go off of. This doesn’t seem to happen in the Windows version of HiFile, but it also doesn’t happen with other file managers on macOS, so I don’t think this is an OS limitation.

Adding to the weirdness, I’ve also noticed that certain files I downloaded would be listed in HiFile with the wrong date. Multiple files I had just downloaded were shown with seemingly random dates in the past, though Finder and other apps showed them with the appropriate date.

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Cross-platform support is a nice bonus

Consistency helps

The one thing that really helps HiFile stick out is that it’s a properly cross-platform app, and that in itself is a benefit. Providing a consistent experience across operating systems will make it easier for those who work on different computers but want things to feel as familiar as possible. It can be jarring to move from Windows to macOS, so there is value to something like this.

Plus, a paid HiFile license should let you use the app on multiple devices, so you might save some money compared to buying different file managers on Windows or macOS. That being said, I don’t know if this is enough to convince someone to choose HiFile over other apps considering those other apps are much better.

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HiFile can’t live up to the competition (yet)

As much as HiFile seems to get right, I can’t find enough benefits here to justify recommending it over the many alternatives out there, such as PathFinder or ForkLift on macOS, or apps like OneCommander or Directory Opus on Windows. That being said, this seems to be a non-final release, as we’re not even at version 1.0 yet, so I’d say there’s potential for it to earn a recommendation. But when it’s a paid app, expectations are fairly high, and competition is tough. So I’m not sure I can fully recommend this one. That being said, you get a 60-day free trial, so there’s no harm in giving it a shot.