Thirteen features in Captain’s Deck, the dual-pane file manager for Mac — built-in PTY terminal, SFTP/S3 remote storage, inline Git, archive browsing, vim navigation, JavaScript plugins, and Norton Commander themes. Every feature here exists for a reason — earned its place by being something you reach for daily. No bloat, no toy demos.
The orthodox file manager paradigm: side-by-side directories where every operation has a clear source and destination. Each pane holds unlimited tabs. Switch with Tab. Each pane has its own current path, history, and selection.
Navigate with hjkl, arrows, or page keys. Quick-jump by typing the first letters of a filename. Multi-select with Insert. Every action discoverable via F1. And every shortcut is yours to change — Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts lets you Record, Add, or Remove bindings (several per action, multi-key chords like dd included), or switch the whole app to the Orthodox, macOS, or Vim layout preset.
Native Quick Look preview for the cursor file — images, PDFs, video, source code, all the formats Quick Look already handles, plus hex view for binary files in the dedicated Preview Panel. Arrow through files and the preview follows.
Press ⌘+F to search — Spotlight metadata returns instantly, then a deep grep takes over for content matches. Quick Search can now reach into subfolders too. Regex enabled by default. Narrow by file type, or search inside archives.
Real PTY at the bottom of the window. Bidirectional sync via OSC 7 — cd in zsh, the pane updates; navigate in the GUI, the prompt follows. Full ANSI color, mouse support, and your dotfiles. Dress it in a built-in scheme — Classic Green, Solarized Dark, Nord, Dracula, Tomorrow Night — set the cursor style, or Import from Terminal.app to pull the colors from a .terminal profile.
Tools > Compare Files with FileMerge for a side-by-side syntax-highlighted diff. Tools > Folder Sync for two-way folder comparison and sync. Git-aware diff is built in for modified files in repos.
ZIP, 7z, RAR, TAR.GZ, BZ2, XZ — press Enter, treat them like any directory. Add files by dragging. Extract by copying. No third-party app required. Encrypted archives prompt for password inline.
Write context-menu items, custom commands, or batch operations in JavaScript. The captain.* API surfaces fs, ui, http, shell, clipboard, storage, events, and more. Sample plugins ship in the docs.
Delete moves to the macOS Trash, which lives right in the sidebar with a live icon that fills and empties as you go. Select something and Put Back restores it where it came from. Ready to reclaim the space? File → Empty Trash, ⇧⌘⌫, or right-click the sidebar Trash.
SFTP, FTP, FTPS — passwords or keys, all credentials stored in the macOS Keychain. Sync browsing (⌘+⌥+Y) mirrors navigation between local and remote panes via relative path deltas, so a local checkout and its server deploy walk in lockstep no matter how their absolute paths differ. Same WinSCP feature you’re missing if you’re moving over.
Amazon S3, MinIO, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Wasabi, Cloudflare R2. Browse buckets like folders, drag to upload, edit and save back. Per-region credentials, never round-tripped through us.
Five built-in themes: Modern (follows the system), Paper (light, off-white, stays light), Bridge (the deep-navy look of this very website — amber folder markers, JetBrains Mono bundled in), Norton Commander (blue + cyan, with optional CRT scanlines and phosphor glow), and Midnight Commander. Prefer Light or Dark regardless of macOS? An Appearance switch pins it. Want your own? Drop a JSON file in ~/Library/Application Support/CaptainsDeck/Themes/ and click Reload — Captain’s Deck reads it on the spot. Per-pane fonts and sizes are configurable.
Swift & AppKit. Quick Look, Spotlight, and Keychain integration. Stage Manager friendly, Mission Control aware, full-screen elegant. Notarized for direct download; sandboxed for the Mac App Store version. Universal binary. The little things add up too: a configurable sidebar, Copy Path straight from the breadcrumb, folders that auto-refresh as they change on disk, thumbnails in Icon view, and accurate free space for external and network drives.
cd in zsh and the active pane updates; navigate the GUI and the prompt follows. Full ANSI color, mouse support, and your dotfiles. ForkLift launches Terminal.app externally; Captain’s Deck keeps the shell in-window. Terminal guide →
Full feature set. No restrictions. No card.