Moving content around on the Mac can be incredibly easy or slightly annoying. Growing up on Windows, I’ve lived with the luxury of cutting documents before pasting them in the desired locations. Quite honestly, that’s still my preferred method of moving documents. By default, that’s absent on the Mac. And to be frank, I’ve never liked how the Mac has dealt with files and folders at all. This may seem absurd, but hear me out: To take a file from my documents, and move it into a folder hierarchy buried somewhere on my system (perhaps deeper in my documents), I either have to copy the folder then delete the original, or drag and drop. Copying, pasting, then deleting the original is a terrible way to go about things unless you’re working with text. Dragging and dropping can work okay, but it gets old when you have to go maybe five folders deep. There is no other absolute move command which cut solved.
The second problem with computers in general is screen real estate. On my laptop, every pixel counts. Dragging and dropping is made easier when you have two finder windows open, but again, it gets old having to resize windows each time. If you’re like me and you still haven’t moved to a third party application to manage your files and folders, then Fiwi can help solve the drag and drop dilemma.
I had mixed feelings initially trying Fiwi, but after some use, I rather like it. It’s an unobtrusive tool that makes the whole window ordeal simple. With a click of a button, you can simply generate two symmetrical Finder windows that aid in the task of moving files and folders.
I do feel that this application rides on the verge of being rather archaic. The Fiwi Utility (used to customize the experience) is rather old school and semi-confusing, which could be simpler with a proper implementation in System Preferences. While it takes me a second to open up multiple finder Windows with command-N, it takes a second for Fiwi to think about your screen resolution, then size the Windows appropriately (it’s not instant). Check out the video below for quick demo, courtesy of moi.
Fiwi by Cody Fink from Federico Viticci on Vimeo.
Fiwi is only $0.99 (a dollar!) on their website. It’s an easy purchase if you’re looking for this simple and useful functionality.
