Where each command lives, which keystrokes are bound, how to grant jFile access to your folders, and what to check when search, preview, or a remote connection does not behave as expected.
jFile NLP is a multi-pane file manager for macOS. File panels sit side by side, any panel can be split off into its own independent window, a preview pane can open beside them, and a sidebar on the left lists your Favorites, Volumes, Places and Network Devices. Most of what follows describes where a control lives, so you can find it once and stop hunting for it.
Almost every command acts on the active panel - the one you last clicked. Copying, moving, searching and view changes all follow it. If a command seems to affect the wrong side, click once inside the panel you meant and try again.
images from this month.Every panel has its own search bar at the top. Type a phrase and press Return. You do not need a special syntax: jFile reads file type, size, dates, tags, comments and content intent out of ordinary English. That interpretation runs locally on your Mac.
jFile does not send your search text, file metadata, or file contents to an external AI provider, cloud AI API, or hosted language model in order to understand your query.
large PDFs modified last weekfiles tagged reddocuments from last yearimages larger than 10MBcomments containing invoiceaudio files longer than 5 minutesThe microphone button at the far left of the search bar dictates a query instead of typing it. macOS will ask for Microphone and Speech Recognition permission the first time. Speak the query the same way you would type it.
jFile can read text inside your images and recognise what they show, then search that. Indexing is a deliberate step, not something that happens to your whole disk automatically:
graphic files containing invoice.Indexing continues in the background when your Mac is idle and on power. If it appears to stall, check the status text under the panel - it reports when indexing is paused.
jFile prefers Spotlight's index because it is fast, and falls back to walking the folders itself where the index is missing, incomplete, or switched off. It tells you on screen when it does this, so a slower search is explained rather than mysterious. To rebuild coverage for a location, use Edit › Reindex with Spotlight… To see what Spotlight actually covers on a volume, open File › Volume Health… or click the Spotlight status text beneath a panel.
View › Show Preview (⌘P) opens the preview beside the panels; the same command closes it again, though the menu title does not change to “Hide Preview”. Select a file and it renders in place. Brightness and contrast controls sit within the pane for dim scans, and a lock keeps the current file on screen while you carry on browsing.
Most formats are drawn by macOS itself. jFile adds its own renderers for professional formats macOS
cannot show natively, including CAD and drafting drawings, layered image packages such as
.ora, .kra, .procreate and .sketch, and
.eps, .qoi and .ai artwork. Where jFile has no renderer of its own
it falls back to the system preview rather than showing a blank pane. Everything is rendered on your Mac;
nothing is uploaded.
Text, Word, OpenDocument and RTF documents can be edited directly in the preview and saved, or saved as a copy so the original is untouched. Apple Writing Tools (proofread, rewrite, summarise) are available there but are switched off until you enable them in jFile NLP › Preferences… under General, where the app explains what may leave your Mac first. Leave it off and everything in jFile stays on-device.
Point each panel at a folder and choose View › Compare Panels (⇧⌘D) to see what differs. For ongoing work, File › Folder Sync… (⌘Y) copies differences in either direction; you can also right-click a local folder to reach it.
Copy and move act between panels, which is the point of a multi-pane layout: set the source in one panel, the destination in another, and the operation has somewhere obvious to go.
These are not interchangeable, and only one of them is recoverable.
| Command | What it does | Recoverable? |
|---|---|---|
| File › Move to Trash | Sends the item to the macOS Trash. | Yes, from the Trash. |
| File › Delete | Removes the item permanently. jFile asks you to confirm first. | No. |
| Fast Delete | Removes a large folder and everything in it permanently, skipping the Trash. Confirmation required. | No. |
If the destination already holds a file of the same name, jFile stops and asks rather than overwriting silently, offering to replace, skip or keep both. On a long transfer you can apply your answer to everything that follows.
jFile reaches servers and cloud storage directly, in the same panels as your local files, without mounting first from Finder. Open Go › Connect to Server… to enter a server by address, or Go › Network Devices (⇧⌘K) to scan the local network for machines that advertise themselves.
jFile is sandboxed: macOS grants it access to the folders you nominate, not to your whole disk. This is why a panel can open empty even though the folder plainly has files in it. Nothing is wrong with the folder - jFile has simply not been given access to it yet.
If an operation is refused, jFile shows a “Permission Required” message naming the same route. Add the enclosing folder or the whole volume rather than one file at a time, and the rest of that tree comes with it.
The usual cause is sandbox access rather than a missing folder. Choose File › Add Volume or Folder to jFile… and add the enclosing folder or the whole drive. See Permissions and Access. If the location is on an external drive or a network mount, confirm that it is currently connected.
Check the Recursive checkbox and the Depth picker in that panel's search toolbar first: a depth limit stops the search before it reaches deeper subfolders. Then check the column filters above the file list, since a filter left set will narrow what you see. If results still look short, the Spotlight index for that volume may be incomplete - open File › Volume Health… to see its reported coverage, and use Edit › Reindex with Spotlight… to rebuild it.
This is expected, and jFile says so on screen. Remote protocols cannot answer every filter: content, tags, comments and owner are local-metadata filters. jFile applies what the server supports, names the filter it had to drop, and returns the broader list rather than a wrong one. Narrow the results with the column filters once they arrive.
Text and object search inside images only covers folders you have indexed. Run Edit › Index for Graphic OCR Search… and choose the scope. Background indexing runs when the Mac is idle and on power, so it pauses on battery - the status text beneath the panel reports this. Leave it plugged in, or run the index in the foreground.
jFile renders many professional formats itself and hands the rest to macOS. A generic icon means neither could render that file: it may be corrupt, truncated, or a format with no renderer on this system. Confirm the file opens in the application that created it. Also check that the preview pane is not locked on a previous file - the lock keeps one file on screen while you browse.
Some commands are deliberately menu-only, and a few shortcuts you might expect from Finder are not bound in jFile. ⌘⌫ does not move files to the Trash, and Rename has no working keystroke - use File › Move to Trash and File › Rename, or the right-click menu. See Menus and Shortcuts for what is actually bound.
This is the reference for where commands live. Where a command has no keystroke, that is deliberate and the menu path is the way to reach it.
| Command | Shortcut | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| jFile NLP › Preferences… | ⌘, | The window is titled Settings |
| jFile NLP › Hide jFile NLP | ⌘H | |
| jFile NLP › Quit jFile NLP | ⌘Q | |
| File › New Folder | ⌘N | New folder, not a new window |
| File › Open | ⌘O | One item at a time |
| File › Get Info | ⌘I | |
| File › Duplicate | ⌥⌘D | Option, not plain ⌘D |
| File › Folder Sync… | ⌘Y | |
| Edit › Undo / Redo | ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z | Text editing only |
| Edit › Copy / Paste | ⌘C / ⌘V | Paste always copies |
| Edit › Select All | ⌘A | |
| Edit › Find | ⌘F | Focuses the panel search bar |
| View › Show Preview | ⌘P | Same command closes it |
| View › Compare Panels | ⇧⌘D | |
| Go › Back / Forward | ⌘[ / ⌘] | |
| Go › Up | ⌘U | Parent folder |
| Go › Home | ⇧⌘H | |
| Go › Documents | ⇧⌘O | |
| Go › Downloads | ⇧⌘L | |
| Go › Network Devices | ⇧⌘K | Starts a subnet scan |
| Window › Minimize | ⌘M | |
| Focus the address bar | ⌘L | No menu item |
| Refresh the listing | ⌘R | No menu item |
These have no keystroke. Reach them from the menu bar or, where noted, the right-click menu.
Several things have no menu entry at all, which makes them easy to miss:
jFile is sandboxed and can only read locations you have granted it. Choose File › Add Volume or Folder to jFile… and add the folder or the whole drive. See Permissions and Access.
It is a separate file manager, not a replacement for Finder. It suits work that benefits from several panels open at once, any of which can be split off into its own window, plus inline preview, plain-English search, and direct access to servers. Finder remains available for everything else, and jFile integrates with Finder tags and the Trash.
No. Natural-language interpretation, voice transcription, OCR, image recognition and document insights all run on your Mac. The one exception is Apple Writing Tools, which is off until you turn it on in jFile NLP › Preferences… under General, and which is explained there before you enable it.
It is not bound in jFile. Use File › Move to Trash, or File › Delete to remove permanently. Rename likewise has no working keystroke - use the File menu or right-click. See Menus and Shortcuts.
No. Edit › Undo covers text editing only. Prefer Move to Trash over Delete when you want a way back, and watch a long operation in Window › Transfers, where each item can be cancelled while it runs.
Remote protocols cannot answer filters that depend on local metadata, such as file contents, tags, comments and owner. jFile applies what the server supports, tells you on screen which filter it had to drop, and returns the broader list rather than a misleading one.
macOS 26 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. Intel Macs are not supported.
This is the most useful way to report a problem, because it carries the context we would otherwise have to ask you for.
jFile shows you this before anything is sent, and the report includes:
Reports go over HTTPS directly to the developer's own server and are forwarded by email. No third-party form service is involved.
For feature requests, licensing questions, or anything the in-app reporter does not cover, use the button below to reveal the support address. Telling us your macOS version and the steps that reproduce the problem will usually save a round trip.