Path Finder 26.1.9 — Mac version

Twenty-seven thousand images from a single weekend shoot. Finder chokes just previewing the folder. That's the sort of limit that sends you looking for something built for the job.

Sorting a shoot with two panes

Here's the task: copy all the RAW files shot before 11am into a separate drive and rename them with the date first, so the client sees a sensible timeline. You'll need:

• Dual-pane view, open side by side
• The batch rename tool
• File search by type and date

Filtering .CR3 files straight to the backup drive

Set the left pane to your memory card and the right to the backup drive. Hit the filter bar and tell it to show only .CR3 files modified before 11:00. The list shrinks instantly. Drag the filtered batch across to the right pane, select all, and open the rename tool. A quick pattern swap puts the date stamp at the front, followed by the original number. Press go and the whole lot copies and renames in one pass — no separate Finder windows, no littering the desktop with halfway folders. The built-in preview panel means you can spot-check a few files without opening another app. It's one straightforward chain of actions that would take three or four separate steps in a standard setup.

List View click and batch rename fixes

Version 26.1.9 didn't add flashy features. It tidied up behaviour that had been annoying people for a while. List View now handles a double-click on an icon properly — no more missed selections when you're moving fast. Batch rename used to hit a wall at 31 files; that limit is gone. Multiple-item selection in List View behaves again, and the tag colour badges and iCloud status icons have been restored across Icons, List, and Columns views. If you'd noticed missing download progress dots or label tints, they're back.

Drag-and-drop got attention too. Selection drawing in Icons View no longer leaves ghost rectangles, and the slide-back animation when you cancel a drag now plays correctly in every view type. A handful of menu icons and compatibility rough edges on macOS 27 Golden Gate were also patched. None of it rewrites the app, but for everyday reliability it's the sort of list that matters.

Tuesday morning with a cluttered project folder

Imagine Tuesday morning. You've got a cluttered project folder, a remote server to connect to, and a pile of zip archives to unpack. Here's how it plays out.

Open Path Finder. The dual-pane layout is already set from last time: local drive on the left, FTP bookmark on the right. You click the bookmark and it connects without launching a separate client. The remote directory lists cleanly. You filter the left pane by .zip, select six archives, and right-click to unpack them with the built-in archive tool. They expand into a new subfolder while you watch the progress in the info strip at the bottom.

While that runs, you switch the left pane to your project folder and sort by modification date. The preview panel shows you a PSD thumbnail without opening Photoshop. You spot the version you need, drag it to the FTP pane, and the transfer begins. No extra windows, no switching apps. It feels like one continuous workspace rather than a series of disconnected operations.

A photographer's morning workflow

Lucy shoots interiors for estate agents. After a morning on site she comes back with around 800 JPEGs spread across two cards. Her routine used to involve importing everything into a dated folder, then manually sorting keepers from test shots. Path Finder changed that.

She mounts both cards and opens them in separate tabs inside the left pane. A quick filter isolates files larger than 4 MB — the test shots are always smaller because she shoots them at lower resolution. That leaves her with roughly 200 keepers. She drags them into a folder named with the property address, then runs batch rename to prepend the date and room name. The preview pane lets her check verticals on the first few shots before she even touches Lightroom. By the time the files hit her editing app they're already organised, named, and sitting in the right place. What used to take twenty minutes now takes about five.

• Fixed double-click behaviour when clicking an icon in List View
• Fixed a batch rename limitation affecting 31 renamed files
• Fixed multiple-item selection in List View
• Fixed label/tag colour badges and iCloud status/download icons in Icons, List and Columns views
• Fixed drag-and-drop selection drawing in Icons View
• Fixed drag-and-drop cancellation slide-back animation in all view types
• Fixed menu item icons on macOS 27 Golden Gate
• Fixed minor UI and compatibility issues on macOS 27 Golden Gate

• macOS 13 Ventura or later
• Works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs