Default Folder X

Many years ago, I used to use Default Folder and like it, for what it was. Now I’m curious, are many of you using it? What do you like/love about it? How exactly are you using it?

I looked at buying a license for it today, and was floored by the price. $35!? Is there something magical about this app that I’m not understanding? It’s just a Open/Save dialog box enhancement, right? Am I missing something here? Why is this app so expensive?

This is one of my core apps. Without this app, saving and loading icon OSX feels crippled and slow.
Accessing favourite folders/ recent folders/ current folders open in finder is speeding up my work a lot.
So this app is one of my recommendations. It has also always been working well even after all changes that OSX has been through in the last ten years.

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I like it. I really need to tweak it more but I found it useful when I was learning development because I could use it to send certain file types like .html or .js files to their proper folder in the hierarchy

It is expensive but I got it so long ago for cheap I was able to leverage an inexpensive upgrade.

You may want to hold off. I hear version 6 is due this year

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I depend on it. Half the time I have a Finder window open, and when saving a webpage I just click to the Finder window while DF is active to choose that folder in the save dialog box. I use the preview constantly, I use the Favorite folders constantly, I use the Spotlight-based Find constantly.

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Absolutely love this feature for the time it saves

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One of my most used apps. Macs feel broken without it.

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Curiously, what do you mean by saving a webpage? How are you saving them, as a web archive? Do you mean like when you find an interesting article or something, and want to save it for posterity, instead of bookmarking it?

I found my old license, and can obtain an upgrade for $14.99. Still on the fence about it, but do like the discounted price. :slight_smile:

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I find it essential too.
Most of the time it remembers the last file I used in a particular folder, and that helps me when I have multiple data files to process, and don’t recall the last one I processed.
To me it’s well worth $35.

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I can only speak for myself but 15 bucks is a no-brainer. I didn’t see the utility when I first tried it out years go but today and the amount of data flowing to my computer I gotta have it.

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Yes, I’ll save entire articles if they’re interesting, broken down into folders and subfolders (and subsubfolders), which is handy not only for offline searching, but also valuable for posts and articles that often disappear online or go behind paywalls.

If I want to save an article (I’m usually in Brave browser) I’ll save it as html. If I want to save an article complete with images I’ll switch to Safari and save it as a webarchive. My 103Gb Documents folder has around 34,000 files in it.

Been using it for a lot of years (can’t remember how long). Still using it.

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As others posted above, DFX has been on my Macs as long as the app has been around, and it feels completely natural to access Favorites or Recents rather than navigating Finder. When friends who are new to Macs ask me what apps they should buy, DFX is always on my shortlist of recommendations.

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I use it all of the time for three main features:

  1. setting a specific folder as the default folder for a given app

  2. setting favorite folders for quick access

  3. ability to quickly get to the folder of any currently-open Finder window.

Yes, the price stands out in the age of the “fart-app pricing” / race-to-the-bottom of the iOS and Mac App Stores. But there’s a reason that this app has been around and continually developed for so many years: the developer can actually afford to support it.

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I don’t know when I originally bought it (probably have to fire up Yojimbo to find original receipt, ha), but I paid $16 for an upgrade in 2016. Seems like a bargain to me when I use it a bajillion times a day.

My favorite feature-if I’ve already navigated to the folder in Finder where I want to save a file, switching from the Save Dialog box to Finder and back redirects the Save Dialog to that Finder folder. Takes longer to explain it than to do it.

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Definitely worthwhile upgrading. I’ve had it on all my macs since I don’t know when and would be lost without it. Hardly ever use Finder now, just the menubar app and the menu system.

I cannot use a Mac without Default Folder X. I find it useful all day, every day!

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I’ve used DFX off and on for a long time. I also like TotalFinder, but I seem to see some “disharmony” between the two apps. Is anybody else using them together and do you see any problems? Any tweeks required?

Thanks.

It’s that kind of utility that you don’t usually notice its existence when it works, but will feel painful as soon as you don’t have it at hand (e.g., when you quit it by accident or are configurating a new macOS installation). Two of my favorite features are to jump to any location of an opened Finder window by clicking on that window, and to automatically expand a “shrinked” save window to the full-size version (although I hope the animation could be faster, but that’s a problem of macOS’).

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If I remember correctly, it used to also allow you to change the default option for a dialog box. i.e. “Cancel” is the normal default in a dialog box, but you could change it to “Accept” using Default folder. Does it still allow that?