Regarding ES File Explorer: I used it heavily years ago, but with every new version I felt it became scrummier and sleazier and was not comfortable to continue, even with its impressive features.
Is the paid version much better?
Is the paid version much better?
* Packing/unpacking 7z and Zip/Zip64 (splitted-encrypted), TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, WIM, Lizard, LZ4, LZ5, Zstandard.
* Root access for all advanced operations.
* SAMBA, FTP, SFTP, WEBDAV supported as well.
* Intuitive, unlimited tabbed browsing.
* Very pleasing, nice-looking, easy to use interface (I know this is silly, but as much as I like Total Commander which is good I always felt it's interface was a little clunky.)
* Developer is very active and receptive to feedback.
Give it a try, it's free on XDA with a paid version on the Play Store[1] with at the time of writing, only 5 and 4 star reviews.
[0] https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1523691
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mixplorer....
(I am not affiliated with the creator)
I like its column-based view of the filesystem, and the wifi server that you can open a web browser to and upload files from your laptop/desktop.
Some of the features are paid, but frankly $5 for an app really doesn't bother me much as I try to donate at least that to the different open source projects I use a lot.
[1] https://lh3.ggpht.com/-aGrlHAFIEPCk-tusiw91bH6sn-YfzS5pNo-ng...
That said, once I tried copying/moving files around, I was sold on the 2-column layout. I recently got a new phone, which meant moving my custom ringtones and notification sounds to their correct locations. With Google Drive I downloaded them, then using X-Plore I moved them to the ~/Notifications and ~/Ringtones folders. That was fairly easy to do - you find the destination in the right hand column, then swipe back to the left column, select the files for moving, then choose copy/move.
It's kind of like the column mode in Finder on OS X, which I really wish I had on Windows 10.
I've used Amaze File Manager ever since, and I have no complaints.[2]
[0]https://www.androidpolice.com/2015/11/28/after-adding-a-bunc...
[1]https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-up...
[2]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amaze.file...
I think I could build it from source but I don't have an Android dev environment anymore so I installed the app from Google Play. It asks surprisingly few permissions: read/modify/delete content on the SD card and access to fingerprint hardware.
It's like a completely different app, all the cruft like ads and pushing other apps is completely gone. You're just left with all the good stuff and those features generally all work well.
Amaze is a decent file manager, follows material design, free/open source and available on F-droid.
It also includes an ftpd so it's pretty easy to connect to it even from computers you can't install stuff on.