Cosmil
A beautiful, multi-pane Finder replacement for macOS
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Cosmil 2.0 - A beautiful multi-pane Finder alternative, finally rebuilt

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Cosmil 1.0 launched with a gorgeous interface and real performance problems. So I rewrote it. New Svelte 5 frontend, Rust backend—now a folder of 40,000 files now opens instantly. Multi-pane layouts (dual, tri, quad — as many as your screen fits), real cut and paste, workspace restoration, advanced search filters, native icons, all the Finder annoyances fixed, and more. Same interface people bought it for, none of the jank. No telemetry, no subscription — one payment, free updates forever.

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Hey ProductHunt!

I'm proud to announce that I'm launching the 2.0 version of Cosmil — a macOS Finder alternative designed to be beautiful, functional, and pleasing to use. Cosmil is built with Tauri v2, Svelte 5 (powers the GUI), Rust (powers the backend, including search and all file operations), and the objc2 family of Rust crates.

For context, 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the original Cosmil 1.0 which released just about 2 years ago but had some major performance, stability, and design issues. Folders with more than several thousand items would hang for seconds before opening and large image files would do the same — not to mention video and pdf thumbnails weren't even supported yet, cross-volume transfers were notoriously slow, and most file icons were generic svgs. When building 2.0 from the ground up I had to think about how I'd address all of these issues. I built the frontend in Svelte 5 (which wasn't released yet when 1.0 was being developed) which has absolutely fantastic and extremely performant reactivity via the runes system, implemented a performant virtualizer for files list and grid view (and internally flattened the tree view list instead of using recursive components), rewrote the file transfer backend that powered copies and moves, hooked into macOS's native file icon and quicklook preview generation system (with a custom caching system), and so much more. Some of my changes required manually patching Tauri and its dependencies (wry, some tauri plugins), and creating my . Using a novel framework and tech stack requires novel and creative implementations.

A file explorer sounds like a really simple product at first glance — just hook into standard library copy and move functions, read the clipboard, and handle drag operations — but once you get into the weeds you realize there is so. much. more. to it. File transfers need to handle transfers ranging from 1 to millions of files — all while handling progress tracking, conflict resolution, and canceling. Search must be implemented, and be performant, and customizable. Everything in the layout should be resizable. Everything needs rigorous testing and auditing — you're dealing with real and extremely precious user files.

And without a doubt there is ALWAYS more to implement. Remote location support, in-place archive viewing, bulk rename, and more are already on my to-do list post launch. Working on Cosmil 2.0 has been hard but extremely gratifying — especially when I know I'm building and improving on a product I've already created and known the ins and outs of — and I'm excited to hear your feedback to improve it even more.

If you have an in-limbo project in the back of your head that you know still has potential, and it's been nagging at you that you should give it a second chance — go ahead and give it that second chance. I did it with Cosmil and built a new version that I can truly say I'm proud of and look forward to using and working on every day.

Thank you for taking a look at Cosmil!