ExplorerFocus is a Windows Explorer replacement for people who always work in the same folders. Configurable profiles, clean trees, a preview that opens almost anything — code, documents, books — and operations that actually tell you what's happening. Without the shell's noise.
Each feature was added to answer a concrete problem in daily work over a known file tree. None is there for show. Almost all can be toggled on or off.
Drag-reorder, F2 to rename, Ctrl+1..9 to jump between tabs, Ctrl+T to create. Tabs remember the last folder visited and the tree state.
You manually define the roots you want to see. Filesystem and registry side by side. No sidebar full of items you never open.
Type *.cs *.json and get OR semantics. ?onfig.json, Test*Run.cs — all work.
Right-click a tab → "Include in global search". The dot indicator (●/○) shows what's in. Results in a non-modal window.
Text with syntax highlight via AvalonEdit, images decoded in the background, PDFs rendered by the Edge engine (WebView2), Markdown converted to HTML with a dark theme by Markdig. Individually toggleable. Cancels previous load if you change selection.
A focused Windows Explorer replacement. Built around configurable folders, it forgets everything that doesn't matter.
net10.0-windows · WPF · single-file
Note — preview works with Edge WebView2 installed (ships with Windows 10/11).
Floating window shows per-file gauge, real speed, ETA, global count. Pause, resume, cancel. Up to 6 parallel operations. Get on with your life while it runs.
Overwrite / Skip / Duplicate, individually or in bulk for the rest of the operation.
Drag a file to a tab and the tab switches on its own after 600ms. Copy/Move dialog on drop.
Enter a folder with .dwg, .psd, .bak? An aggregated dialog asks once. Per-row picker (browse to the .exe; name auto-resolved by FileVersionInfo). Mark as ignored those you don't care about. The list persists.
In any tree folder. Normal and elevated variants. regedit on registry keys.
.cs, .xaml, .json, .md, .cmd, .ps1 — start with the typical structure. The name is highlighted without erasing the extension while typing.
Title bar, scrollbars, datagrids, dialogs, tooltips, Markdown preview — all in the same visual language. No stray whites from unlikely places.
Geometry of the main window and the operations window. Last active tab. Tree pane width. Column sort. Tree state. All in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ExplorerFocus.
A 1.8s tooltip over any file shows computed size, dates, attributes. Folders carry the recursive size — computed lazily, with a semaphore to avoid hammering the disk.
A custom comparer guarantees directories stay on top of any sort, in any column, in any direction. As it should be.
Normal click selects. Shift+click extends with "majority decides" semantics — if the range is mostly already selected, it unmarks; otherwise it marks. Ctrl+click toggles individually. No more "I lost all selections by accident".
Self-contained, single-file, compressed. Copy to a flash drive and it runs on any Windows 10/11. net10.0-windows + WPF — no dependencies outside the executable's folder.
Connect to SFTP, FTP/FTPS and WebDAV (Nextcloud, ownCloud, NAS, IIS). Browse, preview, upload and download, create folders, rename and copy/move — with byte-level progress and cancel. Edit remote files locally and sync on save. Password or SSH key auth; secrets encrypted with DPAPI.
Free: 1 SFTP/FTP/FTPS connection — browse and preview only. PREMIUM unlocks WebDAV, multiple connections and all operations.
Connect to Dropbox and OneDrive via secure OAuth — no passwords stored. Browse, preview, upload and download, create folders, rename and copy/move, like a local folder. Your files never pass through our servers.
PREMIUM: required from the first connection — browsing, preview and all operations.
Instant preview of any .epub, .mobi, .azw, .azw3, .prc or .fb2: cover, table of contents and the opening text. Open the full book in its own reader, with chapter navigation, page jump, auto-scroll and your reading position remembered. Comics too: .cbz and .cbr open page by page, without unpacking hundreds of megabytes first.
Free: preview — cover, contents and a first look inside.
PREMIUM: full reader — navigation, page jump, auto-scroll, page-turn and memory of your last 20 books.
Books you own open. Books bought with DRM stay locked to the store that sold them — the app explains why when it finds one.
Preview Word (.doc/.docx), Excel, PowerPoint, RTF and OpenDocument (text, sheet and presentation) right in the pane. Audio and video play in the preview, with a floating window and volume/speed controls. A marker flags files that have a preview; password-protected files are flagged without asking for the password.
One click records the microphone into the current folder. Pick the microphone, watch the live level meter, adjust the recording volume and save as WAV or M4A/AAC.
Live camera preview, with a choice of camera and microphone, resolution and format — MP4, WMV or AVI. Saves into the current folder with one click.
Free with a discreet footer watermark. PREMIUM: no watermark.
Scan from the flatbed or the feeder (ADF), many sheets at once. Choose the resolution and colour — colour, grayscale or black & white. Save as JPEG/PNG or merge everything into a multi-page PDF, and keep adding sheets to the same PDF.
Free: 1 flatbed page, with a watermark. PREMIUM: multiple pages, feeder (ADF) and no watermark.
Double-click (or Browse inside) to enter the archive — browse the contents, preview and copy files out without extracting everything. Read-only; Open with… still opens them in WinRAR/WinZip/7-Zip.
Pick a region of any monitor (or the whole screen) and record to MP4 with the microphone. Add the camera: switch screen⇄camera with transitions (fade, wipe, slide, mosaic), show it as PiP in a corner, or side by side in split screen.
Free: watermark + 15 s and no sound. PREMIUM: no watermark, no time limit and with sound (microphone + system).
Give your recordings (screen and camera) an intro card, a permanent text banner and a credits-style end card (up to 10 lines). 5 independent models, each with 3 presentations, logo, background colour and an episode badge — built for a consistent video series.
PREMIUM. Discreet “Made with ExplorerFocus” signature on the end card.
Record the screen silently, then in a dedicated box play the video while you narrate over it. The narration lands in a separate file; add background music, balance the volumes (so the music won't drown the voice) and generate the final video with all three sources.
PREMIUM. The video and narration stay as separate files; only “Generate final” creates the mixed video.
Every important operation has a shortcut. Mouse-free whenever possible — comfort for long sessions.
Each dependency was chosen for maturity, size, or the absence of reasonable alternatives. No framework-of-the-day.
The complete list travels inside the program, with every author and the full licence texts — under About → Third-party licences.
Classic WPF, no WinUI or MAUI. Compatible with Windows 10 and 11.
ObservableObject, ObservableProperty, RelayCommand — generated by source generators.
Syntax highlight, markdown renderer, and embedded Edge engine for PDF.
For sending to the Recycle Bin — the only honest way, and it works.
SFTP through SSH.NET; FTP and FTPS through FluentFTP. Mature, and boring in the good way.
WebDAV, Dropbox and OneDrive are written by hand against their HTTP APIs. No vendor SDK to age badly.
Microphone and system sound through NAudio and WASAPI; the scanner through NTwain, the TWAIN standard.
ZIP, RAR, 7z and TAR read in place, so an archive opens like a folder.
First time opening it? That's normal.
Because ExplorerFocus is new and not yet code-signed, Windows may show a blue warning (SmartScreen). The file is safe — here's how to continue.
Open the program
Pinned it to the taskbar and it won't open?
ExplorerFocus.exe → Properties.Verify the file — optional
Only if you want to be absolutely sure you downloaded the official file, unaltered. Pick one of the two methods.
ExplorerFocus.exe lands when you download it. Do this in File Explorer, not in the browser.Method A — PowerShell
Get-FileHash .\ExplorerFocus.exeMethod B — Command line (cmd)
cmd and press Enter.certutil -hashfile ExplorerFocus.exe SHA256It should match this value (upper/lowercase doesn't matter):
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Match? It's the official file, unaltered.
What is SHA-256?
Think of it as the file's fingerprint. An algorithm reads every byte of ExplorerFocus.exe and boils them down to a 64-character code (letters A–F and digits). That code is the SHA-256.
It has two properties that make it useful:
So verifying is simple: if the code you compute on your file matches the one published here, you can be sure it's exactly the official file, byte for byte — no corruption, no changes. The code can't be reversed: it's only for comparison and never reveals the contents.
How to confirm
ExplorerFocus.exe lands when you download it. Do this in File Explorer, not in the browser.Method A — PowerShell
Get-FileHash .\ExplorerFocus.exeMethod B — Command line (cmd)
cmd and press Enter.certutil -hashfile ExplorerFocus.exe SHA256It should match this value (upper/lowercase doesn't matter):
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Match? It's the official file, unaltered.