Stupid Geek Tricks: Using 7-Zip as a Blazing Fast File Browser
One of the most irritating things in Windows is the file browsing experience… it’s slow, buggy, and never wants to stay in “Details” mode. If you are already using the awesome 7-Zip utility, you have a powerful alternative file manager at your disposal.
In case you’re wondering, 7-Zip is our file archiving utility of choice around here. It’s awesome.
Using 7-Zip File Manager
You can quickly find the 7-Zip File Manager under the start menu by just typing “7″ into the search box.
The default view is a simple details view, that doesn’t go out of whack every time you browse into another folder. It just works. You can even browse down into any archive (zip, rar, iso, etc) file as if it was a folder.
Using the View menu, you can enable a dual pane mode, so you can drag/drop files back and forth between the panes.
For quickly accessing folders, you can setup Favorites that even have hotkeys associated to them… makes finding that deeply nested folder a breeze.
Inside the options panel are a couple of really useful options that aren’t enabled by default: You can show the real file icons the same way Explorer does, enable the regular explorer system menu, and set full row selection.
Ever browse to a folder, but then forget which one it was? Using the Alt+F12 shortcut key (or through the View menu) you can bring up the Folders History dialog, which saves everywhere that you browsed. Very useful!
The context menu for files already has powerful capabilities embedded… we already have a hack to add the Copy To / Move To options to Explorer, but it’s something that should just be there in the first place.
You’ll notice in the screenshot that there’s also a very useful option to create a new folder with a hotkey… something you can only do in Explorer with a plugin.
Create a Shortcut to Open a Specific Folder in 7-Zip
You can also setup an icon to open up 7-Zip already set to a specific folder. Just right-click anywhere and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.
Use the Browse button to navigate down to the following path (adjusting if you installed elsewhere).
“C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7zFM.exe”
Make sure to include the full path in quotes, and then pass in the path that you want to open as a parameter (with a space between). In the example above, the shortcut will open the C:\ folder.
Now you should have an icon that will open 7-Zip directly to the C: drive.
It’s simple, easy, and useful… it’s a Stupid Geek Trick. Got any tricks of your own? Share them in the comments.
Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:
Fantastic idea!
I once dug deep into the web to find a way to make the details view a system wide default and never did uncover anything half as good as 7z.
Woah, this can replace my windows explorer lol.
Thanks for pointing this out – it’s fast and easy. I’ve been using 7-Zip as a compression utility but this never occurred to me. After trying other file managers such as Zabkat Explorer2, but finding them far too complex for my needs, this is just right.
The only thing it’s missing is the ability to use your “send to” options.
I am actually embarrassed that I never thought of this before. This really does work so very well.
I wasn’t aware of this feature of 7-Zip and although I am impressed with just how snappy it is (reminds me of the days of using the abandoned Turbo Navigator) I doubt it can replace my Windows Explorer replacement of choice – FreeCommander. Its navigation through folders is a bit clunky and requires way too many steps to get me where I want. The feature it sorely misses is moving back and forward through history using standard keyboard shortcuts – ALT+left or right arrow. And if it had such feature, customizable shortcuts would come really handy.
I like the ability to delete individual entries in history, but the whole ALT+F12 process of moving through it is too slow, too restricted by the fixed size window and because of that almost gruelling compared to FreeCommander’s ALT+down arrow.
The missing breadcrumb feature is also a big minus.
My main reason for using the option to switch panes in FC is to toggle between sorting the files and folders by name (in right pane) and date modified (in left pane). That can be done in 7-Zip by switching views with CTRL+F keys, but the omission of indicator on the selected column completely baffles me. I just don’t understand how any of the developers didn’t notice that or, much worse, deemed it as such an unimportant detail that it’s not even worth the trouble implementing it. But I guess they are mostly focused on the primary nature of the program (archiving) and not its functionality as a file manager. Which is a shame, cause this could be a great light-weight alternative.
So, as it is now – capable, extremely fast, but also too unpolished – I highly doubt 7zFM will replace FreeCommander on my computer. But I can see myself using it on other people’s computers, if by some chance I don’t have my USB stick on me.
What a great tool this is! THANKS Geeks!!!!!
That’s pretty cool. 7-zip is the archive manager of choice around here as well. Never would have thought of it as a file browser. Another cool tip from HTG!
Too bad you can’t search the web using it :/
My favorite part about using 7-zip as a file explorer, is being able to open zipped files to an editor and then when I save & close the file, 7-zip updates the archive – no unzipping & rezipping necessary.
I like Xplorer2 better: http://www.zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
It is more powerful, even the “lite” version:
tabs, customizable toolbar, etc
For Windows Think about the excellent QTTabBar, free too, and compatible XP and Vista (Not 7 yet).
Windows Xplorer will be fitted with tabbar, launcher, favorites… And some plugins are available…
http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/
Excellent ! Terific !