14 DAY TRIAL // If you’ve grown tired of the old-fashioned Windows Explorer and you really want to try something new, Extra Explore could be just the thing that you are looking for. Boasting an interesting design and well-chosen colors for the graphical interface, it can certainly make file browsing more interesting, if not downright more pleasant.
What sets this app apart from others of its type is the fact that you no longer have a tree menu on the left and a content viewer on the right. With Extra Explore, you now have the ability to split the content view into two separate windows that allow you to view files from different locations on your hard disk drive. This feature can come in handy, especially if you want to copy different files from one location to another, without having to go up and down through your directory list. Now, you can simply drag and drop the file from one location to another.
Another interesting aspect is that it can also create customized groups, which act as shortcuts to your favorite applications. It's like bookmarking your favorite and most used applications so that you can later use them without having to browse through all your files. Each group can be assigned a customized name according to the applications it houses, from software to music or games.
Let’s say, for instance, that you want to copy multiple files from different locations to a single folder. This is both a time-consuming process and a very frustrating one because you have to take the files one at a time. With Extra Explore, you can now add all the files from different locations to a to-do list, so that you can use them later when, say, you need to move all of them at once to a single folder. Basically, this feature acts as a buffer between the actual movement of files from one location to another.
If you ever thought that the Details feature provided by Windows Explorer in the status bar just wasn't enough, this piece of software lets you view details about a selected file or folder in the left panel, which means that you don’t have to look at the statusbar every time you select a different file. Now, you can view the name, type, size, and the date when the file was last modified.
If, by any chance, you need to have more info on the folder that you are currently browsing, you can always take a look at the statusbar of your selected panel, and view exactly the number of available files, the number of selected files, and even the name and size of the partition you are on.
As already noted above, the colors of the application make it quite user-friendly, but if you really feel the need to give it a more personalized look, you can always change them from the Options window in the Tools menu. This window offers you the possibility to change the background color of the main window, the font, and even the folder bar. To put it differently, you can customize Extra Explore as you desire, so that browsing through your files becomes both easy and fancy-looking.
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Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
