A modern dual-pane file manager for macOS, Linux, and Windows — ported from the legendary Directory Opus 5 Magellan (Amiga, 1995).
iDOpus brings the classic DOpus experience to today's desktops. The original Directory Opus 5 Magellan was released as open source under the AROS Public License in 2012, and this project builds on that codebase.
- macOS (Apple Silicon) — full-featured AppKit build (
iDOpus.app). This is the flagship target. - Linux — Qt 6 build (
idopus-qt), tested on KDE Plasma. Tracks macOS feature parity iteration by iteration. - Windows 10/11 (x64) — same Qt 6 codebase, MSVC build. Shipped as an Inno Setup installer (
iDOpus-<version>-Setup.exe).
See the Feature matrix below for the exact status per platform — the Qt build is still catching up to macOS.
macOS (1.0): a daily-driver dual-pane file manager with Button Bank, source/destination Listers, full file operations with progress, conflict resolution including folder merge, drag-drop, Quick Look, file type actions, bookmarks, tabs, remote transfers (rclone) — see the complete feature list below.
Linux + Windows (in progress): the Qt 6 build targets parity with the macOS version — not a lesser-featured sibling. Every iteration ports another chunk of macOS functionality into the Qt codebase, so Linux and Windows land the same feature in the same release. The section Feature matrix tracks the gap concretely.
Still planned for all three platforms: FTP/SMB, content (grep-style) search, ARexx / scripting bridge. macOS-specific TODO: Apple Developer ID signing + notarization.
Legend: ✅ shipped · 🚧 in the current iteration · ⏳ planned · — N/A for this platform.
| Area | macOS | Linux | Windows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dual-pane Listers with SOURCE / DEST focus | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sortable columns (Name / Size / Date / Type) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Path bar with inline editing | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Back / Forward navigation history | ✅ | ✅ (iter 2) | ✅ (iter 2) |
| Breadcrumb path control (click ancestors) | ✅ | ⏳ | ⏳ |
| Type-to-find (prefix search) | ✅ | ⏳ | ⏳ |
| Live refresh (filesystem watcher) | ✅ (FSEvents) | ✅ (iter 2) | ✅ (iter 2) |
| Bookmarks menu + persisted | ✅ | ✅ (iter 2) | ✅ (iter 2) |
| Copy / Move / Delete / Rename / MakeDir / Info | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Conflict dialog (Replace / Skip / Keep Both / Merge) | ✅ | ⏳ | ⏳ |
| Background Jobs panel with progress + cancel | ✅ | ⏳ (iter 4) | ⏳ (iter 4) |
| Drag-and-drop between Listers + external (Ctrl=Move) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Filter dialog (show / hide pattern + dotfiles) | ✅ | 🚧 (iter 3) | 🚧 (iter 3) |
| Select By Pattern | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom Button Bank (user buttons + shell commands) | ✅ | 🚧 (iter 3) | 🚧 (iter 3) |
| File type actions (ext → command, Open With menu) | ✅ | 🚧 (iter 3) | 🚧 (iter 3) |
| Preferences dialog | ✅ | ⏳ (iter 4) | ⏳ (iter 4) |
| Preview / Quick Look (image / PDF / text) | ✅ | ⏳ (iter 5) | ⏳ (iter 5) |
| Compress / Extract (zip, tar.gz) | ✅ | ⏳ (iter 5) | ⏳ (iter 5) |
| Tabs (native macOS / Qt) | ✅ | ⏳ | ⏳ |
| Split Display | ✅ | ⏳ | ⏳ |
| Remote transfers (rclone + SMB/SFTP/Bonjour) | ✅ | ⏳ (iter 6) | ⏳ (iter 6) |
Track ongoing work in the windows/iter-* branches and open PRs. Goal: reach parity on every row in this table.
- Grab the latest
.dmgfrom Releases. - Open the
.dmgand drag iDOpus.app to Applications. - First launch: because the app is ad-hoc signed (not Apple-notarized), macOS Gatekeeper needs a one-time bypass. Right-click iDOpus in Applications and choose Open, then confirm.
From Terminal, equivalent:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/iDOpus.app
Optional — to skip all macOS TCC privacy prompts ("iDOpus wants to access your Documents folder…"):
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access → + → /Applications/iDOpus.app.
Requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or later on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4).
- Grab the latest
iDOpus-<version>-Setup.exefrom Releases. - Run it. The installer is Inno Setup–based and walks you through the usual Program Files install, optional desktop shortcut, and an optional Open with iDOpus right-click entry for folders.
- The first time SmartScreen sees the unsigned
.exeit'll warn about it. Click More info → Run anyway (until the project has a signing cert).
Everything the app needs — the Qt runtime, the MSVC redistributable DLLs — is bundled inside the installer; no separate Qt/VS download.
Prebuilt Linux packages aren't yet published. Build from source (quick; see Building on Linux below). The Qt idopus-qt binary drops into any Qt 6.5+ desktop without further setup.
- Two tiled Listers on launch with a Button Bank docked between them — classic DOpus Magellan layout
- Each Lister is SOURCE / DEST / OFF (mirrors Amiga
LISTERF_SOURCE/LISTERF_DEST). Focusing a Lister promotes it to SOURCE; the previous SOURCE demotes to DEST. - Columns: Name, Size, Date, Type — click to sort, click again to reverse
- Real file icons (via NSWorkspace) and Quick Look thumbnails (images / PDFs / videos) render asynchronously, cached per-file
- Breadcrumb path bar: click any segment to jump to that ancestor
- Navigation history (Back / Forward per Lister, ⌘[ / ⌘])
- Inline rename (F3, single selection)
- Type-to-find: type letters in the file list to jump to matching entries
- Tabs via native macOS window tabbing (⌘T, ⌃Tab / ⌃⇧Tab)
- Split Display (⇧⌘N) halves the current Lister and opens a new one beside it
- Copy / Move with a progress sheet per operation, cancellable, runs on a background queue so the UI stays responsive
- Conflict dialog: Replace / Skip / Keep Both / Cancel All / Merge (for dir-on-dir)
- Non-destructive folder merge recursively fills in missing items without overwriting
- Delete to Trash (or permanent, toggle in Preferences) with confirmation
- Rename (inline on F3, dialog for multi)
- MakeDir, New File…, Duplicate
- Copy to… / Move to… with a folder picker (no need for a second Lister)
- Compress (zip via ditto, preserves macOS metadata) and Extract (zip / tar.gz / tar / gz)
- Info: path, kind, size + recursive size for folders, permissions, owner, timestamps
- Drag-and-drop between Listers (Copy; Option = Move) and to/from Finder, the Dock, Trash
- Docked between the two Listers, full height
- Built-in buttons: Copy · Move · Delete · Rename · MakeDir · Info · Filter · Parent · Root · Refresh · All · None
- Custom shell-command buttons with
{FILES}/{PATH}placeholders (Add Custom Button…) - Help ⓘ with examples (opening Mac apps, running CLI tools, handling filenames)
- Non-activating — clicking a button never steals focus from the SOURCE Lister, so copy/move semantics stay stable
Add File Type Action…: extension + title + shell command + optional default- Choose App… auto-fills
open -a "App Name" {FILE}— no need to type the command - Extension pre-fills from your current selection
- Double-click runs the extension's default action; right-click → Actions submenu lists all defined actions
- Filter (⇧⌘F): Show pattern, Hide pattern, Hide dotfiles (glob syntax)
- Find (⌘F): live incremental search within the current directory
- Select By Pattern (⇧⌘A): glob-based multi-select
- Compare With Destination: select source items that don't exist in dest (classic DOpus feature)
- Bookmarks menu with built-in locations (Home, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Applications, Pictures, Movies, Music) and user entries
- Devices section lists user-visible mounted volumes (APFS system containers hidden)
- Go to Path… (⌘L) dialog with tilde expansion
- Reveal in Finder, Open in Terminal from right-click
- Auto-refresh via FSEvents — any external filesystem change updates the Lister automatically
- Selection preserved across reloads so background changes don't wipe what you marked
- Persisted state: last-open paths, column widths, hidden columns, custom buttons, bookmarks, file type actions
- Status bar with selection info:
5 selected (24.3 KB) | 14 files, 29 dirs (463.9 MB) — 64.68 GB free - Preferences (⌘,) for hide-dotfiles default, restore paths, dual-pane at launch, Button Bank visibility, Trash vs permanent delete, reset-all
- Ad-hoc code signing so TCC grants persist across installs
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
F3 |
Rename (inline for single selection) |
F5 |
Copy (source → dest) |
F6 |
Move (source → dest) |
F7 |
MakeDir |
F8 |
Delete (Trash or permanent) |
F9 |
Info |
Space |
Quick Look |
Return |
Open / enter folder |
Backspace |
Parent directory |
⌘N |
New Lister |
⇧⌘N |
Split Display |
⌥⌘N |
New File… |
⌘T |
New Tab |
⌃Tab / ⌃⇧Tab |
Next / previous tab |
⌘W |
Close |
⌘[ / ⌘] |
Back / Forward |
⌘L |
Go to Path… |
⌘F |
Find (incremental search) |
⇧⌘F |
Filter… |
⇧⌘A |
Select By Pattern… |
⌘B |
Show / Hide Button Bank |
⌘. |
Toggle hidden files |
⌘D |
Add Current Bookmark |
⌘, |
Preferences |
Drag between Listers = Copy; hold ⌥ (Option) while dragging = Move.
On Linux, Ctrl replaces ⌘ and Alt replaces ⌥ (so drag+Ctrl = Move, Select By Pattern is Ctrl+Shift+A).
Directory Opus was the file manager on Amiga. First released in 1990 by Jonathan Potter / GP Software, it became the gold standard for file management — a dual-pane, fully customizable powerhouse that made the Amiga's Workbench feel primitive in comparison.
Version 5 ("Magellan") was the pinnacle: it could replace Workbench entirely, acting as a complete desktop environment with Lister windows, button banks, ARexx scripting, FTP integration, and a modular architecture.
Today, macOS still lacks a truly great dual-pane file manager in the spirit of DOpus. This project aims to change that.
The source is derived from Directory Opus 5.82 Magellan, released under the AROS Public License (APL v1.1, based on Mozilla Public License) by GP Software in 2012 via the power2people.org bounty program.
"Directory Opus" is a registered trademark of GP Software. The trademark is licensed for use on Amigoid platforms (AROS, AmigaOS, MorphOS) only. This macOS port uses the name iDOpus and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GP Software. The commercial Directory Opus for Windows (currently v13) is a separate product.
Clean-room port guided by the original source in original-amiga-source/. Amiga subsystems are replaced by their macOS equivalents rather than emulated.
| Amiga layer | Modern replacement | Status |
|---|---|---|
exec.library (memory, IPC, signals) |
PAL: malloc + pthreads on POSIX, HANDLE + CRITICAL_SECTION/SRWLOCK/CONDITION_VARIABLE on Windows |
✅ |
dos.library (file I/O, paths, patterns) |
PAL: POSIX + Foundation on macOS/Linux, FindFirstFileW + MoveFileExW + UTF-16 on Windows |
✅ |
| Intuition / BOOPSI GUI | AppKit (NSWindow, NSTableView, NSPanel) on macOS; Qt 6 Widgets (QMainWindow, QTreeView) on Linux + Windows |
✅ |
| DOpus Lister + source/dest model | ListerWindowController state |
✅ |
| DOpus Button Bank | floating non-activating NSPanel |
✅ (+ user-custom buttons) |
| DOpus file types + actions | per-extension shell commands stored in defaults | ✅ |
graphics.library rendering |
CoreGraphics / AppKit via NSTableView | ✅ |
| 68K assembler fragments | Removed / rewritten in C | N/A |
| SAS/C 6 compiler | Clang / Xcode | ✅ |
| Preferences | Preferences panel + NSUserDefaults |
✅ |
| Quick Look preview | QLPreviewPanel + QLThumbnailGenerator | ✅ |
| Filesystem watch | FSEventStream | ✅ |
| FTP / SMB modules | — | ⏳ planned |
| ARexx scripting | AppleScript bridge / embedded Lua | ⏳ planned |
| Modules (viewer, print, …) | macOS bundles (.bundle + dlopen) |
⏳ planned |
See docs/PORTING_ANALYSIS.md for the deeper porting plan.
Requires Xcode Command Line Tools and CMake (3.20+).
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
open build/iDOpus.app
Run the PAL and core test suites:
./build/pal_test
./build/core_test
Produce an ad-hoc-signed .dmg in dist/:
./scripts/package.sh
Requires CMake (3.20+), a C11 compiler, and Qt 6.5+ (Widgets). On Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake qt6-base-dev
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j
./build/idopus-qt
Run the PAL and core test suites:
./build/pal_test && ./build/core_test
The macOS AppKit target is skipped automatically on non-Apple platforms. The Qt/Linux build covers dual-pane navigation with sortable headers, per-pane back/forward history, live refresh via QFileSystemWatcher, bookmarks menu, filter + dotfile toggle, drag-and-drop (between Listers and with Nautilus/Dolphin), a right-click context menu, and Select By Pattern (Ctrl+Shift+A). Quick Look, background progress jobs, file type actions, and tabs remain macOS-only for now — they're coming through iteration by iteration (see the windows/iter-* branches).
Requires Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (with "Desktop development with C++" workload), CMake (3.20+), and Qt 6.5+ for MSVC x64. A convenient way to install them from PowerShell:
winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --silent --override `
"--quiet --wait --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.22621"
winget install Kitware.CMake --silent
winget install Git.Git --silent
winget install Python.Python.3.12 --silent # only needed if you want aqtinstall
python -m pip install aqtinstall
python -m aqt install-qt windows desktop 6.8.3 win64_msvc2022_64 --outputdir C:\Qt
Clone, configure, build:
git clone https://github.com/bamsejon/idopus.git
cd idopus
cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="C:\Qt\6.8.3\msvc2022_64"
cmake --build build --config Release
Stage the Qt runtime DLLs next to the binary (required before running standalone):
C:\Qt\6.8.3\msvc2022_64\bin\windeployqt.exe --release --no-translations `
--no-system-d3d-compiler --no-opengl-sw .\build\Release\idopus-qt.exe
Now run .\build\Release\idopus-qt.exe or go one step further and build an installer locally:
# Inno Setup 6 must be installed first — choco install innosetup -y
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe" `
"/DIdopusVersion=1.8.0" `
"/DIdopusSourceDir=$(Resolve-Path .\build\Release)" `
packaging\windows\idopus.iss
# Output: packaging\windows\build-installer\iDOpus-1.8.0-Setup.exe
The same build runs in CI on every v* tag (see .github/workflows/windows-release.yml) and attaches the installer to the GitHub release automatically.
Source code is licensed under the AROS Public License v1.1 (APL), based on the Mozilla Public License v1.1. See LICENSE for full text.
Original source copyright (c) GP Software / Jonathan Potter. macOS port and modifications copyright (c) 2026 Jon Bylund.
iDOpus is an opinionated port of a 30-year-old Amiga file manager. If that's your kind of project, pull requests and issues are very welcome — especially for FTP, scripting, or additional DOpus modules.
- Jonathan Potter / GP Software — original author of Directory Opus
- MrZammler et al. — maintaining the open source Amiga version
- power2people.org — funded the open source release in 2012
- Claude Code (AI agent) — assisting with the porting process