SPAN Finder: Finder's column view, finally on Windows

Hi Product Hunt! 👋

I switched from Mac to Windows a few years ago, and the one thing I never stopped missing was Finder's column view. In File Explorer, every folder you open replaces the last one, so you keep clicking back and forth and losing your place.

So I built SPAN Finder: a native Windows file manager with Miller Columns at its core. Click a folder and its contents open in the next column, so your whole path stays on screen.

I first posted it here in March. Since then, people actually started using it, and 33 of their bug reports and feature requests shaped what became 2.0:

• Archives open like folders: browse ZIP, 7z, TAR and more, and preview or drag files out without extracting

• It can fully replace File Explorer: set it as your default file manager, and folders opened from other apps land in SPAN tabs

• Tabs you can tear off and re-dock, Chrome-style

• Workspaces to save and restore whole tab layouts

• SFTP with SSH keys, SMB shares and WSL paths

• Custom shortcuts, folder color tags, and 10 themes (Dracula, Nord, Catppuccin…)

• Much more stable: I tracked down and fixed dozens of crashes along the way

It's built with C# and WinUI 3, and it's open source under GPL-3.0. You can download it free from GitHub. There's also a Microsoft Store version if you'd like automatic updates or want to support development.

I'm a solo developer, so honest feedback means a lot. If you switched from Mac too, I'd love to know: what else do you miss from Finder?