Directory Opus

I am rewriting my review again after a few months of using the pro version of this program ($100 for 2 PC liscneses roughly)

PROS (and reasons why its better than anything else in its class)

• Best in class metadata image data preview -> you can click an image, and havei t display all the information next to it. Extremely useful if you do any sort of image editing like photoshop but don't want to use a dedicated platform for it, such as Adobe Bridge or XNview
• Best in class metadata text preview -> You can preview contents of an excel file, copy it, without even opening up excel at all. The same is true for text files. You save a lot of time not having to open / close anything up for read-only mode previews. Useful for looking at readme.txt files, previewing word docs, etc
• Best in class video preview -> Its got a built in VLC-video like player inside of it, so you can preview video clips. This is extremely handy if you want to compile video game clips together and need to preview its contents fast, or if you are doing adobepremierePro /or screencasts/ youtube and need to see what your video files look like very quickly
• Allows for .EPS / PDF thumbnail previewer using outside extensions. Extremely useful if you write a lot of business docs/ spec sheets/ taxes / accounting / legal things, or if you want to preview your vector files quickly. See https://resource.dopus.com/t/free-thumbnails-viewer-for-eps-pdf-32-64-bit-and-many-more/13703/6 for more details
• Extremely customizable. Can customize quick access toolbar up top, there's dozens of settings for shortcuts here
• Rich extension support using javascript -> If you need batch commands with directoryopus, there is a community here for that. https://resource.dopus.com/c/buttons-scripts. No other platform supports this besides directoryopus. Some things include the ability to batch process images on par with adobe photoshop
• Almost every standard feature you can think of (Folder treepane, FTP file support / directly using command prompt at subfolder, favorites, etc). Not much else to say here except that is supports it
• Dockable widget support similar to desktop coral. Useful if you want to access directoryopus but don't want to view your whole window with it

CONS

• Its pricy but you get what you pay for and your supporting future development. Honestly $100 for 2 PC liscenses is not a whole lot in how much time I save from using this
• Its easy to pick up but figuring out how things work for first time might be confusing. Its not that huge of a learning curve but its definitely there, especially if you modify settings I suggest just going on their forum and asking questions / searching through it https://resource.dopus.com/ or the help section

COMPARABLE PROGRAMS

• Xyplorer -> does not offer metadata preview to my knowledge
• Total commander -> outdated
• Clover -> Windows 10 compatability problems

Some additional things:

Their youtube videos are topnotch quality in explaining all of their rich features very quickly. I suggest checking it out here: (all features covered in suually 20 minutes or less)

https://www.youtube.com/user/Nudelyn/feed

I highly recommend this program. You aren't a poweruser until you've used this software

I also only named about half the features, there's lots more I haven't even looked into it yet or don't have a use for it

[Edited by Kagerjay, July 16]

[Edited by Kagerjay, November 29]

A great tool, so far the best dual panel manager I encountered

I've been a DO user for 5-6 years at least, and it hasn't improved much over that period of time. However, they keep charging for pricey upgrades and simply aren't worth it.

They won't be getting any more money from me.

DOpus is fully customizable and has all the features one looks for in a dual-pane file explorer.

Is it expensive? Yes. And that's pretty much the only negative I can think of. If you're a data hoarder doing lots of file/folder management stuff, this is the best there is.

Features: 5/5 without being overwhelming. Stability: 5/5 rock solid. Support: 5/5 I've been using it for decades (currently on v.11) the few times I needed support it was provided almost instantly.

Fun fact: DOpus roots are from the 80ies. JPDirUtil was the name of it's precedent it ran on Amigas.

I've been using this app for about 5 years now. It's by far the most customizable from the massive amount of settings to completely changing the UI to your desire. I have tested out all other explorer replacements including XYplorer but none of them come close. XYplorer is 2nd IMO, which does a great job visually presenting files and folders (thanks to not using the windows shell to general thumbnails) but severely lacks in customization, at least in comparison to DOPUS. There are a lot of small QOL things that DOPUS can do that other programs cannot and you really notice those if you go back to other programs. The only downside to DOPUS is it's reliance on the windows shell for certain things like thumbnail generation, which will restrict you to a max thumbnail size of 256x256. You can get around this for things like videos in which you can use DOPUS thumbnailing but compared to windows shell + Icaros the resultant thumbs are very subpar. This is not enough to remove a star and I rate this program a 5/5 as it is currently the leader in file managers.

A dual-pane file manager that has good preview support. Lets me scan multiple files, identify them by preview, rename, and file them away with efficiency not matched by anything else I've tried!