Contact & Support

Questions, bug reports and feature requests are all welcome. We answer every message.

What to include in a support request

The more of this you can give us, the faster we can help:

• Your macOS version (Apple menu → About This Mac).
• The MTF Explorer version (MTF Explorer menu → About MTF Explorer).
• What you did, what you expected, and what happened instead.
• Whether the problem involves a local folder, a cloud or FTP/SFTP connection, or a connected camera or phone.
• A screenshot, if the problem is visible on screen.

Billing and subscriptions

Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple through the App Store. To view, change or cancel a subscription, open App Store → your name → Account Settings → Subscriptions, or use Manage Subscription in the app. Refund requests are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Legal

Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Third-Party Licenses

Getting Started

MTF Explorer is a dual-pane file manager for macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later. It runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel Macs.

The interface

• Workspace bar (top) — workspace picker, plus Refresh, Compare, Bookmarks, Connections, Orphans, Cleanup, Settings and Help.
• Two panes — each with its own tabs, path bar, toolbar and file list. One pane is always active; most commands act on the active pane, and copy/move operations use the opposite pane as the destination.
• Status bar (bottom of each pane) — item counts and free space on the volume.

First steps

1. Click the drive button at the top-left of a pane to pick a volume.
2. Grant access to the folders you want to work with (see Granting Folder Access).
3. Press Tab or ⌘` to switch panes, and F5 / F6 to copy or move between them.

Granting Folder Access

MTF Explorer is sandboxed, which is a macOS security feature: the app can only read folders you have explicitly given it access to. This is why a folder may appear empty the first time you open it.

How to grant access

When MTF Explorer needs permission for a location, it opens the standard macOS folder picker with a message naming the folder. Choose the folder and click Grant Access. The grant is remembered using Apple’s security-scoped bookmarks, so you are only asked once per location.

Reviewing or removing access

Open Settings → Advanced to review saved access grants and remove any you no longer want. Removing a grant takes effect immediately.

Navigation & Tabs

Drive selector

The button at the top-left of each pane lists mounted volumes, saved cloud and FTP/SFTP connections, and any connected camera or phone. Selecting an entry navigates that pane to it.

Path bar

The path bar shows the current location as clickable segments — click any segment to jump to that ancestor folder, or click the chevron between segments to see and jump to sub-folders. The full path is shown underneath and can be edited directly.

Tabs

Each pane has an independent tab strip. ⌘T opens a tab, ⌘W closes it, and ⌘⇧[ / ] move between tabs.

Bookmarks

⌘D bookmarks the current folder; ⌘⇧B opens the bookmarks list. Selecting a bookmark navigates the active pane to it.

Workspaces

A workspace stores the folder open in each pane, every open tab and which tab is active. Save the current layout with ⌘⌥S and switch between saved workspaces from the workspace picker at the top-left.

Linked panes and swapping

Link the panes to mirror navigation in both at once, or swap their locations with a single click from the pane toolbar.

File Operations

Copy and move

F5 copies the selection to the opposite pane; F6 moves it. Both show progress and can be cancelled. Drag and drop works within a pane, between panes, and to and from Finder.

Delete

F8 moves the selection to the Trash. Files that macOS protects are trashed via Finder, which may ask for your permission the first time.

Rename and create

• F2 — rename the selected item.
• F7 — new folder.
• ⌘⇧N — new text file.

Open, preview and inspect

• F3 opens the selected file, F4 opens it in your editor.
• Space or ⌘Y shows a Quick Look preview — images, PDFs, documents, video and anything else with a Quick Look plugin.
• ⌘I opens Properties, including checksums for verifying that a copy or transfer arrived intact.
• ⌘E reveals the item in Finder.

Search

Filter bar

The filter field above each file list narrows the current folder as you type. It does not leave the folder you are in.

Advanced search

⌘F opens search. You can search by name or wildcard, and narrow by size range, date range and file extension. Results are listed with their full paths and can be acted on like any other selection.

Semantic search

Semantic search finds files by meaning rather than exact spelling — searching for “invoice” can surface a file named billing-2026.pdf.

The filename index is enabled by default and can be turned off, rebuilt or cleared in Settings → AI & Search.

PDF content search

With PDF content indexing enabled, MTF Explorer extracts the text of PDF files in folders you have granted access to, so you can search inside them. The extracted text and its index stay on your Mac.

Batch Rename & Selection

Batch rename

Rename many files in one operation using a prefix or suffix, sequential numbering, a regular expression substitution, or a case change. A live preview shows the resulting names before you apply them.

Select by pattern

⌘⌥P selects or deselects files using a glob pattern such as *.heic or a regular expression — useful for targeting a file type before a bulk operation.

Related: ⌘A select all, ⌘⇧A clear selection, ⌘⇧I invert selection.

Tags

Apply colour tags to files and folders and filter the list by tag. Tags are stored by macOS, so they are the same tags you see in Finder.

Auto-tag rules

Rules in Settings → Auto-Tags apply tags automatically based on file extension, size or name pattern when a folder is opened.

Archives

• Create — build a ZIP archive from any selection.
• Browse — open an existing ZIP as though it were a folder and navigate inside it.
• Extract — unpack an archive in one click.

Image Conversion

Convert selected images between JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF and WebP from the context menu. Converted files are written alongside the originals, which are left untouched.

Disk Usage & Cleanup

Disk usage heatmap

⌘⌥H opens an interactive sunburst chart of the current folder. Each ring is a level of the hierarchy and each segment is sized by how much space it uses; click a segment to drill in.

Duplicate finder

Scans a folder for duplicate files by comparing content hashes, not just names or sizes. Results are grouped by duplicate set so you can keep one copy and move the rest to the Trash.

Cleanup

Scans for reclaimable space in one pass — application caches, log files, crash reports, old iOS backups and the Trash. Every category is listed with its size and nothing is removed until you review and confirm.

Orphan data scanner

Finds leftover Library folders belonging to applications that are no longer installed. Each result carries a confidence score so you can judge what is safe to remove.

Folder Compare

Compare the two panes side by side. Results are grouped into files unique to the left, unique to the right, present in both, and present in both but different in size or date. From the results you can synchronise in either direction.

Cloud, FTP & SFTP

Open Connections in the workspace bar to add a remote location. Once saved, it appears in the drive selector and behaves like any other folder — including copying between a remote server and a local folder.

HTTP, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 proxies are supported for FTP connections.

Cameras & Phones

Connect a camera or phone by USB and set it to PTP or Camera mode. It then appears in the drive selector and you can browse it and copy files to a local folder.

If a device is listed but cannot be opened, unlock it — a passcode-locked device refuses the connection until it is unlocked, and MTF Explorer shows the reason next to the device. Once you unlock it, the connection is retried automatically.

Per-device profiles in Settings → MTP Devices let you choose what should happen when a particular device is connected, such as copying new files to a folder you nominate.

Terminal & User Tools

Open in Terminal

Open the active folder in Terminal.app, iTerm2, or whichever terminal emulator you have installed, from the toolbar or the context menu.

User tools

Define your own shell commands or AppleScripts in Settings → Tools. They appear in the context menu and receive the selected file paths as arguments, so you can plug any external workflow into the file list.

Settings

Open Settings with ⌘,, from the MTF Explorer menu, or with the gear button in the workspace bar.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigation

Files

Selection, search and tools

Trial & Subscription

Free trial

MTF Explorer includes a 30-day free trial with every feature unlocked. The trial starts the first time you open the app. No account and no payment details are needed during the trial.

Subscribing

When the trial ends, a subscription keeps everything working. Choose MTF Explorer → Subscription… to see your status and subscribe. Payment is handled by Apple through the App Store; MTF Explorer never sees your payment details.

Restoring a purchase

On a new Mac, or after reinstalling, open Subscription… and click Restore Purchases to bring your existing subscription across.

Managing or cancelling

Open App Store → your name → Account Settings → Subscriptions. Cancelling stops the renewal; access continues until the end of the period you have paid for.

Troubleshooting

A folder looks empty, or files are missing

The sandbox has not been granted access to that location yet. Navigate to it and grant access when the folder picker appears, or grant access to the whole volume once. See Granting Folder Access.

My phone does not appear

Set the device to PTP or Camera mode, unlock it, and confirm any “Trust This Computer” prompt. If it still does not appear, check whether Image Capture.app can see it — if Image Capture cannot either, the problem is with the device, cable or trust prompt rather than with MTF Explorer.

Semantic search returns nothing useful

The filename index may still be building, or may not cover the folder you are searching. Open Settings → AI & Search to check progress, choose the folder to index, or rebuild the index.

A copy or move failed part-way

MTF Explorer journals cross-volume moves and settles any interrupted operation the next time it starts, so no file is left in two places. If a transfer fails repeatedly to a remote location, check the connection settings and whether the server requires TLS.

Still stuck?

Email andrei.filimon@insfactory.ro with the details listed under Contact & Support.