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Three folders.
Your own colours.
Nothing behind your back.

Oliver is a native file manager for the Mac. Open up to three folders side by side, each with its own tree, tabs and colour. Copies wait their turn in a queue, every change can be undone, and AI reads a file only when you say so.

Getting hold of Oliver See how it works Beta · macOS 26 or later · Apple silicon · notarised
Drawn mock-up of Oliver 1.0 with three panes. Choose a palette further down and this window follows.
⌘1⌘2⌘3Panes

One window. Up to three folders, each its own colour.

Every pane has its own folder, tabs, path bar and history. A thin colour strip marks it, and the one you're working in gets a stronger strip, so you always know where ⌘C and ⌘V will land.

  • Tabs in every pane. ⌘T opens one, up to 30 per pane. They come back after a relaunch.
  • Swap and mirror. ⌘U swaps the panes; ⌥⌘U shows the same folder in the other one.
  • Drag anywhere. Between panes, tabs, windows, trees and path bars, and to and from Finder.
  • A folder header with clickable parents and the item count, above every list.
In each pane: every pane has its own tree with Favorites, Cloud and Locations.
⌘Z⇧⌘ZQueue and undo

Big copies wait their turn. Mistakes don't stick.

Every copy, move and Trash goes into the Queue, with the current file, its speed and the time left. Large jobs to the same disk run one after another, so two copies to the same share don't fight.

  • One failure stops one job. Try Again, Skip This File or Skip All Unreadable, and the finished job lists what it skipped.
  • Stop cleans up. A stopped copy removes the partial file it left behind.
  • Undo almost everything. Moves, copies, Trash, renames, tags and Organise, in any window.
  • Quit mid-copy? On the next launch Oliver finds the unfinished items and asks what to do.
Right-click a folder ▸ Show What's Taking Space…

Find what's filling the disk, then free it.

Space Explorer scans in its own window while you keep working. See it as a radial chart or a treemap, with a size-sorted list beside it. Hover an arc or tile for its size, click to go in, and Trash what you don't need. ⌘Z brings it back. Duplicates and Largest Files live in the same window, and cloud-only files are never downloaded to measure them.

Drawn mock-ups with sample folders: the radial chart, and the same folder as a treemap. Hover a row, an arc or a tile and the others follow.
⌥⌘ISide panel?Ask

Ask about the folder you're in.

The side panel follows your selection with Preview, Info and AI. Ask "what's biggest here?" and Oliver answers from the folder listing, with file chips you can click and a facts box it works out itself.

  • On this Mac by default. Apple's on-device model runs it. Every panel says where it ran.
  • Your choice of cloud. Claude, OpenAI, or any compatible endpoint such as Ollama, one feature at a time. Keys live in the Keychain.
  • Conversations stay put. Each document keeps its own, and closing the panel doesn't lose them.
✨ menu and right-click

Search in plain words. Summarise, compare, tidy up.

Each tool runs only when you start it, can be stopped, and never changes a file without a preview and your OK. Normal search never uses AI.

Ask turns a question into a search

The chips stay editable, and the search is a normal Spotlight search. Questions about what's inside files open Findings, with quotes and page numbers.

Summarise any document

PDF, Word, Pages, PowerPoint, Excel, Markdown and scanned images. Summaries are kept per document, so switching back is instant.

Compare two versions, word by word

Word against PDF works. The highlights are worked out on your Mac, and identical texts say so without calling a model.

Organise, with a review before anything moves

Destinations stay inside the folder you started from, and nothing is ever deleted. Apply runs as one Queue job.

Cloud files and privacy

Online-only files stay online until you say so.

Browsing, thumbnails, previews, search, folder sizes, Space Explorer and every AI feature leave cloud-only files alone. Only an action you take, like Download Now, fetches one. When it does, you see the progress, and only your Stop ever stops it.

Never readCloud-only files, other apps' data such as Mail or Safari, and whole folders.
Never sent without a cardFile text goes to a cloud provider only after you press Send.
Never kept in plain sightAPI keys live only in the macOS Keychain.
Never in the backgroundNo AI runs unless you start it, and each run can be stopped.
⌘,Settings ▸ Appearance

Make it look like yours.

Pick a palette and the pane colours, tree selection and AI accent change with it. Choose the system font, New York serif or any font you have installed, and it reaches every Oliver window, sheet and menu.

  • Theme System, Light or Dark, live in every window.
  • Tint the file area with the pane colour: Off, Subtle or Medium.
  • Density Comfortable, with 28 pt rows, or Compact.
ProjectsSystem
Client WorkYesterday2.4 GB
Roadmap.pdf30 Sep1.2 MB
Kickoff Notes.mdToday6 KB
ProjectsNew York · Compact
Client WorkYesterday2.4 GB
Roadmap.pdf30 Sep1.2 MB
Kickoff Notes.mdToday6 KB
Moodboard.png29 Sep4.8 MB
Choosing a palette here also repaints the window at the top of the page.
⌥⌘1to⌥⌘9Workspaces

Save a layout. Get it back with one shortcut.

A workspace remembers the pane count, every pane's folders and tabs, the view and the colours. Save one for writing, one for client work and one for sorting photos, and jump between them. ⌥⌘0 takes you back to where you were.

Keyboard

Built for the keyboard.

Finder's shortcuts work as you expect. These are the ones Oliver adds.

One, two or three panes⌘1⌘2⌘3
Next pane⌃Tab
Swap the panes⌘U
Same folder in the other pane⌥⌘U
New tab⌘T
Quick filter⇧⌘F
Side panel⌥⌘I
Show or hide the tree⌥⌘S
Cycle the sidebar modes⌥⇧⌘S
Calculate folder size⌃⌘S
Summarise⇧⌘S
Ask about this document⌥⇧⌘A
Move the copied items here⌥⌘V
Search this Mac⌥⌘F
Switch workspace⌥⌘1–9

Getting hold of Oliver

Oliver 1.0 is in beta: it's used every day, and it's still being checked feature by feature. It is not a public download: if you would like to try it, get in touch. It's notarised by Apple, so it opens like any other app. The first time a pane shows Desktop, Documents or Downloads, macOS asks for permission.

Enquire about access
Needs
macOS 26 or later, on Apple silicon
Optional
Apple Intelligence for on-device AI, or your own cloud API key
Built
Swift 6, SwiftUI and AppKit. No third-party code.
Tested
4,183 automated tests on every change
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