My Take on Bloom, a Mac File Manager

I've always used a file manager as the center of the way I interact with my computer, much more so than a launcher, dock, or menu-driven UI. I used PathFinder for 17 years before switching to Qspace in 2024. I took advantage of the Black Friday sale on Bloom, a relatively new app, to give it a try. Bloom is a well-designed, affordable app with a lot of promise. It's definitely a tool for advanced users and may be overkill for those who aren't. It's not a Finder clone, so you'll have to reprogram your muscle memory to use it efficiently. The developer is actively adding new features and seems responsive to user feedback.

What I Like

• Multi-pane layouts
• Speed of file operations
• Archive view - see inside compressed files without opening them
• Paste copied images and text as new files
• Search is better than Spotlight
• Built-in file operations for image operations, previewing, and renaming files
• Portal window, a unique and powerful implementation of the shelf concept

Wish List

• Auto-mounting of WebDAV and NFS shares. The hooks into conventional cloud storage options are OK, but this is a power user app, and it should improve support for self-hosted services and European services like Koofr and kDrive.
• To really stand out from the competition, improving its renaming capabilities (with regex and EXIF awareness) would go a long way.
• Improvements in dual-pane persistence and the ability to save named workspaces.
• More powerful tab management - pinned tabs, color-coded tabs, tab groups, keyboard shortcuts for more tab operations
• Integration with Shortcuts, AppleScript, Service Menu, and the addition of a plugin system that other devs could hook into, like they do with Finder.
• It wouldn't appeal to me, but I can see the app reaching a larger audience by implementing a Finder compatibility mode that mimics Finder's keyboard shortcuts, viewing modality, and folder opening behavior.

If you like this kind of tool, I'd pick up a copy now, for $16. The dev's website says that all future updates will be available to anyone who purchases the app—no subscriptions, no paid updates after a year, or any of that monetization optimization stuff. If you need more features right now and don't want to wait, try Qspace, but keep Bloom in mind.