FilePane review

FilePane streamlines your Mac’s file management workflow all in one place. Drag items into the app and, depending on what’s dropped into it, you’ll be given options to manage that file. For example, if you drag and drop some text into FilePane, you can save it as a text file, send it as an email, or share it via Twitter and Facebook. This, in theory, saves you time as you don’t need to navigate through lots of menus or windows to manage your files.

FilePane is more of a process than a traditional application. Once it’s installed, it sits up on the menu bar and only launches when you begin to drag something. The app really comes into its own when you drag an image into FilePane. You’re offered a multitude of options, such as setting the image as your desktop wallpaper, saving it into a ZIP folder, resizing the image or rotating it, and sending it as an email attachment. The app really does save time – to resize an image, the traditional process would be to download it, open it in Preview and then resize it. Using FilePane, we were able to resize an image with just one click after dragging it into the app. If you don’t believe in FilePane’s time-saving properties, click on the FilePane icon and it will display the time saved at the bottom of the pop-out window.
FilePane does have a small flaw which can prove irritating – you can’t choose where the Drop Here icon appears, and sometimes it appears in the most inconvenient areas of the Mac display. Additionally, if you’re highlighting text on a page, or dragging a file between folders, the Drop Here box will also pop up without warning when you don’t need it. However, you can choose to activate FilePane with a keyboard shortcut or hotkey, which effectively removes this problem.

Overall, FilePane is a powerful utility – after all, good things often come in small packages. It would be even better if you could bolt the Drop Here box to a specific part of the desktop and perform more tasks such as converting a Word document into a PDF or a Pages document. Still, as it stands, for a mere £2.99/$4.99, FilePane provides excellent value for money in terms of the time you can save from using the app.