Solved Looking for alternative to stock windows file explorer (labels,tags,color coding etc.)

Hello.
I am looking for replacement or addon for stock windows 11 file explorer.
If someone knows some good replacemets then thanks in advance for sharing.

Mandatory features:
- colour coding or taggin individual files and folders for later sorting (similar to MAC OS)

Features I am looking for that are very important:
- nothing automated like auto sorting to some magic "all stuff" or "all videos" folder
- nothing from ms store ( so simple exe/msi installer or even portable is ok)
- minimal to no risk of losing files.

Not mandatory but very welcome.
- working well with current TeraCopy
- having a panel that lets me drag-drop files or folders that I can sort manually and the files are there only visually so nothing is actually moved its just "sorted for later to copy"
- all columns of default W11 file explorer like file type-date created-attributes etc...
- showing size of folders
- preview of files like image files or video files.
- preferably with no dependecies other than VC redists to install. (I dont want to install any Pythons or "Cobras" or other "Anacondas")
- easy intuitive installation
- features from my mandatory/importand list but applicable to external drives
- stable (ofcourse)

For now I tested
GitHub - spacedriveapp/spacedrive: Spacedrive is an open source cross-platform file explorer, powered by a virtual distributed filesystem written in Rust. - wanted to check it out but cannot install it at all...probably could be it if would let itself install in first place
Files • Home - no go - destroyed some of my test data
Dual-pane file manager for Mac, Windows and Linux - fman - quite nice to have and easy arrows and keyboard file operations but no tagging feature.
Color labels function - File Explorer · Issue #22367 · microsoft/PowerToys - wanted to test it because here it says it has something like that but from what I understand its a set of tools not a simple file explorer
XYplorer - File Manager for Windows - well not my thing no features I m looking for.
OneCommander - Modern files manager for Windows 11 and Windows 10 - same as above

So basically most important thing for me is tagging labelling or any easy sorting visual solution thats safe for files.

QTTabBar has a lot of what you're looking for.
Search it on YouTube first, to get a better idea of what it's all about. It's pretty complex!

Edwin said:

QTTabBar has a lot of what you're looking for.
Search it on YouTube first, to get a better idea of what it's all about. It's pretty complex!

Click to expand...

appreciate the suggestion. Im not really looking for anything complex. just stuff to organize and move my messy files and folder which I have a tons. soo something visually helping to help the task. I liked that in fman the siple keyboard navigation and shortcuts to basic tasks like copy paste cut rename etc. My real physical stuff I have mostly organized by visuals of colours and labels it makes it super easy to find stuff but im struggling with something like that on windows environment to find....pretty simple stuff that will make QOL on Windows.

MilkyWindow said:

appreciate the suggestion. Im not really looking for anything complex.

Click to expand...

No problem...,
here's a small example anyway...

Edwin said:

No problem...,
here's a small example anyway...

View attachment 144013

Click to expand...

OK this looks promising. Does it need much fiddling with settings to achieve this? Are colours of files here assigned by filetype exclusively or it was manually made?

MilkyWindow said:

Does it need much fiddling with settings to achieve this?

Click to expand...

Not at all, but you need a bit of patience to set QTTabBar initially.

MilkyWindow said:

Are colours of files here assigned by filetype exclusively or it was manually made?

Click to expand...

Both, by file type or one by one, if you choose...



Folders you have to do manually one by one.

Is it the right link?
Looks Chinesee much so im not sure.

A couple words of caution, though...,

1. QTTabBar doesn't work worth a darn with the native Windows 11 Explorer SDK..., as you can see by my screenshot in Post #4, I'm using Explorer in Windows 7 Mode with the aid of StartAllBack!

2. I'm using an older version (1038) of QTTabBar, which you can get here, (it says 1036 but you get 1038), which is a standalone version that cooperates much nicer with Explorer!

MilkyWindow said:

Is it the right link?
Looks Chinesee much so im not sure.

GitHub - indiff/qttabbar: QTTabBar is a small tool that allows you to use tab multi label function in Windows Explorer. https://www.yuque.com/indiff/qttabbar

QTTabBar is a small tool that allows you to use tab multi label function in Windows Explorer. https://www.yuque.com/indiff/qttabbar - indiff/qttabbar

github.com

Click to expand...

No, grab the here link from Post #8

It's a small package with a standalone exe...

Edwin said:

No, grab the here link from Post #8

It's a small package with a standalone exe...

View attachment 144017

Click to expand...

Ok maybe last question. Tis compatible with Explorer patcher and dark theme?

MilkyWindow said:

... compatible with Explorer patcher and dark theme?

Click to expand...

Not sure about Explorer Patcher as I've never used it...,
dark elements are applied to some degree with version 1038 and the help of StartAllBack...,
a more fully compatible version is the 2048 beta 2, but it has a ton of glitches, in my experience anyway, and, it's not standalone.
The 1038 version you can virtually turn on and off at will.

Edwin said:

Not sure about Explorer Patcher as I've never used it...,
dark elements are applied to some degree with version 1038 and the help of StartAllBack...,
a more fully compatible version is the 2048 beta 2, but it has a ton of glitches, in my experience anyway, and, it's not standalone.
The 1038 version you can virtually turn on and off at will.

Click to expand...

Can I ask for settings file to import like to have result like on from post #4? That "Drop helpers" view especialy?

Here's an overall view of Explorer in W7 mode with QT and all it's Options...

MilkyWindow said:

Can I ask for settings file to import like to have result like on from post #4? That "Drop helpers" view especialy?

Click to expand...

It won't work, many of .xml pointers are OS specific.
It's pretty easy to setup yourself, though, you just need to take your time...,
Here's the QT Manual

I think I have found alternative.
Tested for a while and besides crashing occasionally seems like the free version is to my liking. For now should be enough. it has tagging stuff and nice graphical presentation plus supposedly doesnt do anything to files themselves like internally messing stuff.

Hi there

@MilkyWindow

If you can load up any "Live Linux" distro and just run filelight then this is a really great easy app to analyse files etc -- it supports NTFS Windows files too

just move mouse to a box and details shown plus lots of other options
The overview looks like this :





Cheers
jimbo

The best file managers like Dolphin and Nemo are Linux only. A pity no one has ported them to Windows.

NormanF said:

The best file managers like Dolphin and Nemo are Linux only. A pity no one has ported them to Windows.

Click to expand...

I agree about Dolphin but that's not very helpful to a Windows 11 user.