Built a keyboard-driven file manager for Mac - would love your feedback

Hey everyone,

Long-time listener of MPU here. I’ve been working on a file manager called Captain’s Deck and thought this community might appreciate it (or tear it
apart - either works).

The problem I was solving: I spend most of my day in the terminal and text editors, hands on the keyboard. Every time I had to use Finder, it felt
like hitting a wall - grab the mouse, click around, lose my flow. I wanted file management that worked like Vim.

What I built:

  • Dual-pane layout - see source and destination side by side
  • Vim-style navigation - hjkl to move, / to filter, gg to jump to top
  • Arrow keys too - not everyone wants Vim bindings, so both work simultaneously
  • Built-in terminal - backtick toggles it, and it syncs with your current directory (both ways via OSC 7)
  • Keyboard shortcuts for everything - F5 copy, F6 move, F7 new folder, F8 delete (Norton Commander style for those who remember)

For the power users:

  • Git integration with status badges and staging
  • SFTP, S3, WebDAV connections
  • Browse inside ZIP/RAR archives like folders
  • Batch rename with patterns
  • Quick Look with spacebar

There’s a 14-day free trial if anyone wants to kick the tires: https://www.captains-deck.com

I’m an indie dev, so I actually read every piece of feedback. Would love to know:

  1. What keyboard workflows do you use for file management currently?
  2. Anything obvious I’m missing?

Thanks for reading!

You’re apparently also the (sole?) developer of Taphouse and a few other apps?

How can you develop and maintain so many apps (with so much functionality) and still deliver quality?

(I hope the answer is not “vibe coding”)

Hi. I’m actually not alone, i have my brother who’s also coding but i’ve been making these apps for a looong time. It wasn’t hard but now the maintainance part feels like is 24/7. The truth is i enjoy it, that’s why i manage to stay engaged. And these 2 apps i use daily myself. Especiall Captain’s Deck, i begun developing it just for myself.

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Reminds me of Marta.

i actually never seen that before. It has a lot of similarities it seems judging just from the website. Captain’s Deck has a lot more features though unless Marta doesn’t mention them.
I do use mine though like this because i grew up with Norton Commander :slight_smile:
(I know it’s not for everyone)

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Why would I use it over yazi (my current file manager)?

I use the gruvbox theme for everything. Absolutely love it.