You probably have some as well and I have stuck with these two for many years. Click the images for full size screen shots.
Total Commander
Is my tool of choice for interacting with my web servers at the file level. I use it even though my web sites are now nearly all on WordPress. I use it for:
- Uploading and downloading files. The ones WordPress does not handle like programs, pdfs, etc.
- Copy the URL for the file once uploaded to add as a link somewhere else.
- Editing files: It downloads them to a temporary location on your PC, opens your preferred file editor and uploads it back when the editor is closed. You can take a more cautious route of copying the current file to your local drive, making a copy to edit and upload that back to the server. Useful for e.g. .htaccess edits
- Searching.
- Backing up a web server to a local drive and then keeping it in sync.
- Copying a list of file names from a folder with the details you see in a directory list to your clipboard and then paste it into e.g. Excel for processing
Useful File Utilities
I use this less often but it always get me out of a hole. It is great for both renaming files and altering their contents. I use it for:
- Changing file names of images so a group of photos is now in the middle of the alphabetically list of another group and therefore appears in the correct place in a slide show.
- Every time MindManager changes versions I use UFU to update the “keys” in hundreds of my custom web export files. I set up a search and replace for the old key. It gets replaced with the new key and everything is working again. Only 2528 files to make the change in.
- It can do batch replacements in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
They have served me well. Please ask a question in the comments, if you need to know more from a user.
Perhaps you have some alternatives. Please comment below.