Preview and open files

What a click and a double-click do, the built-in viewers for PDF, photos, video and audio, the quick preview with the Space key, and Open with.

On this page
Documentation sections

Filarr can show most of your files without sending them to another program: PDFs, photos, videos, music, emails, archives and more. What opens, and where, depends on the kind of file.

One click, two clicks

  • A click on a file opens the Details panel on the right: size, type, dates, location, tags and description.
  • A double-click opens the file. Selecting it with the arrow keys and pressing Enter does the same.

To open files with a single click instead, go to Settings → Appearance and turn off File click behavior.

What a double-click opens

Kind of fileWhere it opens
Text and code (.txt, .md, .css, .py…), calendars (.ics), Filarr documents (.fdoc)A built-in editor, see Edit files inside Filarr. The editor takes a few seconds to appear the first time.
ImagesThe gallery
PDF, video, audio, e-books (EPUB)Filarr's viewer
Other files (Word, Excel, emails, web pages, ZIP archives…)The matching application of your computer

The viewers

PDF

The PDF viewer shows the pages with their number, zoom buttons, a button to fit the page, and page thumbnails. If it shows Unable to load the PDF, close it and open the file again with a double-click.

The buttons at the top right are the same in every viewer:

  • information about the file (Ctrl+I);
  • Open with the default app, to hand the file to another program (desktop app);
  • Download;
  • full screen;
  • Close (Esc).

Photos

A double-click on an image opens the gallery, with all the images of the folder in a strip at the bottom. When a folder holds images, the Gallery button at the top of the folder opens it too.

In the gallery:

  • ← and → go to the previous or next image;
  • + and - zoom, 0 goes back to normal size;
  • Space starts or stops the slideshow;
  • Esc closes.

Video and audio

The video player has play, skip back and forward, volume, speed, and full screen buttons.

The audio player shows the sound wave, play, skip, repeat and volume.

Quick preview with the Space key

Word documents, emails, archives and other files open in another application when you double-click them. To look at them without leaving Filarr, use the quick preview:

  1. Click in the folder, then select the file with the arrow keys.
  2. Press Space.
  3. Press Space again, or Esc, to close.

The Space key needs a selection made with the keyboard. Right after a mouse click it does nothing: press an arrow key first.

The quick preview shows, among others:

  • emails (.eml), with sender, recipients, subject, date and attachments;
  • Word documents (.docx), converted for display;
  • archives (.zip, .7z, .rar, .tar…), as a list of their content, see ZIP files and other archives;
  • fonts, with sample text you can edit;
  • calendars (.ics), as a list of events.

Spreadsheets (.xlsx) and web pages (.html) do not display correctly in the quick preview for now: open them in an application of your computer instead.

Programs (.exe, .msi and the like) appear as an information card. Filarr never runs them.

A password-protected file shows Protected file and an Unlock button, see Password-protect a file or folder.

Open with

Right-click a file, then Open with….

The window lists the ways this file can open:

  • System application (desktop app): a decrypted copy opens in the program of your computer. What you save there comes back into Filarr while the file stays open.
  • The built-in editors that can handle the file. For a Word document, Edit document creates a new Filarr document from its text; the original file stays untouched. See Edit files inside Filarr.
  • Preview is listed too, but for now it opens nothing from this window.

Tick Always open .zip files this way (the extension changes with the file) to make your choice the default for every double-click on that kind of file. Then click Open.

To look at a file without leaving Filarr, use the quick preview described above.