rustyfiles

Written from scratch in Rust and drawn on the GPU. A folder with 100,000 files opens in under a fifth of a second.

Download for WindowsStar on GitHub
Free, MIT licensed. Windows 11 x64.

README

rustyfiles is a file manager for Windows, meant to replace File Explorer for everyday work. The window never waits on the disk: listing, icons, thumbnails, the context menu and every file operation run off the UI thread, so a slow network share or a huge folder can't freeze it.

↓ rustyfiles-win-Setup.exe
Download

Installs for your user, no administrator rights. Updates arrive in the background.

rustyfiles showing a Projects folder in details view, with tabs, a breadcrumb bar and pinned folders in the sidebar

Speed

Time from launch until the folder list settles, played back at real speed.

Folder size
rustyfilesListing…
0ms
File ExplorerListing…
0ms

Played back at real speed: one dot is 20 ms.

16×

Faster copying

Than Explorer on 520 files (381 MB), with its own parallel engine. About 30× on 20,000 small files.

10×

Faster RAR

Than UnRAR on a 1.3 GB archive, decoded by rarchive, our own pure-Rust engine.

40MB

Less memory

After listing 10,000 files. Explorer used about 70 MB on the same folder.

Measured on one machine (Ryzen 7 9800X3D, NVMe SSD, Windows 11) on 6 November 2026, median of five runs, folder in the OS file cache. rustyfiles was already running; Explorer started a new process. A cold start of rustyfiles takes 350 to 480 ms.

Features

Tabs and dual pane

Drag tabs to reorder, pull one out into a new window, split into two panes.

Archives open like folders

Browse, extract and edit, password-protected ones too.

  • ZIP
  • 7z
  • RAR
  • tar
  • tar.zst
  • ISO

DirectLook

Instant previews of video, audio, images, PDFs, code and archives.

Space

Your default file manager

Folders, This PC and the Recycle Bin open in rustyfiles.

WinE

Open and Save dialogs

Other apps' file dialogs can open in rustyfiles too, Chrome included.

  • Settings › Advanced

Command palette

Every command a few keystrokes away. Every shortcut can change.

CtrlShiftP

Undo almost anything

Renames, copies, moves, deletes to the Recycle Bin, folder flattening.

CtrlZ

Tags, rename, Git

Colour tags, bulk rename and a Git status column.

  • Work
  • Review
  • Modified

GPU, or CPU when it's busy

When a game or a render saturates the GPU, drawing moves to the CPU and back without a flicker.

DirectLook

Select a file and press Space. DirectLook runs as its own program, so a heavy video never slows the file manager, and it can work in Explorer and on the desktop too.

Press Space, or click the key, to preview cat.webp.

cat.webpDirectLook
Animated image, 320 × 320←→ next file

Install

  1. 1

    Download the installer

    Get rustyfiles-win-Setup.exe and run it. No administrator rights needed.

  2. 2

    Get past SmartScreen

    It isn't code-signed yet, so Windows may warn you. Choose “More info”, then “Run anyway”.

  3. 3

    Make it your default

    Optional: Settings › Advanced › Set as default file manager. Uninstalling puts Explorer back.

Community

Star it on GitHub

Read the code, report a bug or send a pull request. Stars help other people find rustyfiles.

Join the Discord

Get help, share your setup, suggest features and help translate rustyfiles.

Thanks

Files showed what a modern file manager for Windows can be; its feature set was our checklist. GPUI, the UI framework of the Zed editor, draws every pixel, with components from gpui-kit by Longbridge. DirectLook follows the idea of macOS Quick Look and QuickLook by Paddy Xu, which brought it to Windows first.