One window instead of six
Two panes side by side, each with its own tabs, history and view mode. The folder you compare against is already open.
All your locations.
Still your Mac.
Local folders, cloud drives, servers, archives and saved searches open as tabs in one window that remembers exactly how you left it.
What changes on day one
You stop hunting for the other window.
Copies you can walk away from
Transfers run in a visible background queue you can pause, resume or cancel. No modal wall, no lost work when something conflicts.
The server is just another tab
SFTP, SMB, WebDAV and a ZIP archive open exactly like a local folder—same shortcuts, same drag and drop, same panes.
One consistent way to work.
Browse
- Tabs in every pane
- List, grid, gallery & columns
- Local, cloud, server & archive
- Session and workspace restore
Move
- Background operations queue
- Pause, resume & cancel
- Checksummed copy verification
- Conflict details before replacing
Understand
- Quick Look & rich preview
- Metadata inspector
- Indexed and content search
- Duplicates & disk analysis
Automate
- Command palette
- Rules and watch folders
- AppleScript & Shortcuts
- Approval-gated MCP
Everything is a location
Open it. Split it. Keep it.
Every place follows the same rules. Put it in a tab, give it a pane, drag files through it and return to the exact layout later.
Folders, mounted volumes and Trash stay fast and familiar.
Spring-loaded tabs
Stay in context.
Drag files to a tab and hold. Purser opens that location beneath your pointer; keep navigating, then drop exactly where the files belong.
- 1
Drag
Pick up one file or a whole selection from any pane.
- 2
Hover
Hold over a tab and it springs open beneath your pointer.
- 3
Drop
The destination is visible before you let go.
Operations without modal walls
Know what moves. And what happens next.
Transfers keep running in a visible queue. Pause, resume or cancel them without losing the files you were working on.
Compare before replacing
See both full paths, modified dates and file sizes before choosing Replace, Keep Both or Skip.
Read the copy back
Optional SHA-256 verification proves the destination matches the bytes that left the source.
Preview every new name
Stack replacement, regex, token and sequence rules while conflicts stay visible before execution.
Recover the original path
Browse deleted items and put them back where they came from instead of treating Trash as a dead end.
Go deeper when you need to
Find. Inspect. Recover.
01
Search
Instant filtering, indexed FTS5 queries and ripgrep-style content scanning.
02
Preview
Quick Look plus native previews for Markdown, JSON, CSV and hex content.
03
Inspect
Permissions, extended attributes, quarantine, signatures, hashes and Finder tags.
04
Analyze
Duplicate detection and a drill-down disk-space treemap that handles hard links correctly.
05
Recover
Browse Trash, restore to the original path and keep destructive actions explicit.
06
Command
Command palette, Finder or Commander keymaps, and a generated shortcut cheat sheet.
Your workspace survives the window
Pick up where you left off.
Purser restores windows, panes, tabs and saved workspaces without turning your file activity into an account or analytics stream.
- Session restore
- Windows, panes, tabs, locations and selection context
- Keychain
- Connection passwords and authentication secrets
- This Mac only
- Folder grants, Full Disk Access and automation approval roots
- Never collected
- Telemetry, analytics and your file activity
Outside the App Store, still verified
Two minutes from download to first window.
Purser is distributed directly, so it can use the file-system access a file manager needs. Apple still checks it: the app and its disk image are signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized, and the ticket is stapled for offline verification.
- 01
Download
One arm64 disk image, signed with a Developer ID Application certificate.
- 02
Drag to Applications
The DMG opens on the familiar drag-to-install window. Nothing runs an installer script.
- 03
Open it
macOS checks the stapled notarization ticket, so there is no Gatekeeper detour—just the standard first-open confirmation.
Before you download
The questions that matter.
Is Purser in the Mac App Store?
No. Purser ships as an Apple-notarized DMG signed with a Developer ID Application certificate, with Hardened Runtime and library validation enabled. The notarization ticket is stapled, so macOS can verify the app even without a network connection.
Which Macs can run Purser?
Purser needs macOS 15.0 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. It is built as an arm64 application; there is no Intel build.
Do I need an account to use it?
No. There is no Purser account and no sign-in. Purser collects no telemetry, no analytics, no device fingerprints and no crash-report uploads, and it never uploads the names, paths or contents of your files.
Where do my connection passwords go?
Into the macOS Keychain. Passwords, private keys and other connection secrets are never written into connection files, and they are never written to CloudKit.
Which servers, clouds and archives can Purser open?
Saved connections cover SMB, AFP, NFS, WebDAV(S), FTP(S) and SFTP, with known-host verification and ssh_config support on SFTP. iCloud Drive, providers under macOS CloudStorage and available Synology Drive sync tasks appear beside local places; ZIP, TAR and TAR.GZ archives open as browsable read-only locations.
Does Purser replace Finder?
It runs alongside it. Purser reads and writes Finder tags, uses Quick Look, and works within the same macOS permission model, so you can keep using Finder wherever you prefer it.
How do updates work?
Purser checks one signed HTTPS appcast, daily or when you choose Check for Updates. It shows you the version and notes first, verifies the download against its embedded EdDSA public key, and installs only after you agree.
Can I drive Purser from the keyboard or from scripts?
Yes. A command palette and one command registry back the menus and the generated shortcut cheat sheet, with Finder-compatible or Commander keymaps. Rules, watch folders, AppleScript and Shortcuts are available, and the MCP server for assistants is off by default, scope-limited and approval-gated.
Which languages does Purser ship in?
English and Dutch, using system-native localization resources.
Make room for every place.
Built for macOS 15.0 or later on Apple silicon. Version 1.0.6.
- Developer ID signed
- Apple notarized
- No account
- No telemetry
- English & Dutch