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Unifyl Basic - macOS AI-Powered Dual-Pane File Manager

🇰🇷 한국어로 보기 (Read in Korean)

Unifyl Basic is a next-generation, AI-powered dual-pane file manager built natively for macOS. It combines the power-user functionality of Total Commander, the design elegance of ForkLift, and the intelligence of local AI processing into a single, premium file management experience.

Latest release: v1.3.1 (2026-05-26). CJK power-user focus + MAS-Lite infrastructure. F4–F7 of the CJK wedge shipped: messenger / cloud folder auto-bookmarks (KakaoTalk, LINE, WeChat, iCloud Drive — 12 paths), full-width ↔ half-width search folding (Ｕｎｉｆｙｌ matches Unifyl), EUC-KR / Shift-JIS / GBK → UTF-8 encoding conversion with universal Undo (.unifyl-bak.<unixtime> sidecar), and Korean government form heuristic detection (31 signature phrases, threshold 3, ≤100ms on 1MB documents) with a tinted pill badge in HWPX preview. MAS-Lite Xcode target ships sandboxed alongside the Direct distribution — com.unifyl.app.maslite bundle ID, no Sparkle / 7zz / unalz, 9 / 9 [drop] Process() sites wrapped with #if MAS_LITE, first true [lib] migration done (PDFConvertSheet textutil → NSAttributedString in-process). Performance: Hangul → Hanja search expansion 15.6× faster (563ms → 36ms on 10K items). 1.3.0 (CJK wedge F1–F3: ALZ archive extraction, HWPX inline preview, Pinyin / Romaji / Hangul-Hanja filename search) shipped 2026-05-17. See Changelog for the full list.

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Table of Contents

Getting Started

• Getting Started -- First launch, basic concepts, your first file operations
• Dual-Pane Navigation -- Panels, tabs, path bar, bookmarks, preview, thumbnails

Core Reference

• Keyboard Shortcuts -- Complete shortcut reference organized by category
• File Operations -- Copy, move, delete, rename, batch operations, undo/redo
• Selection -- How selection works: cursor, toggle, extend, select all

Search & Organization

• Search and Filter -- Real-time filter, Advanced Search, content search
• Smart Folders -- Virtual file cart for collecting files across directories

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Quick Overview

Feature	Description
Dual-Pane Layout	Side-by-side panels with independent tabs, navigation history, and sort orders
Tabbed Browsing	Multiple tabs per panel, workspace save/restore across sessions
Function Key Bar	F1-F8 classic file manager commands shown at the bottom (ON by default — toggle via View → Show Function Key Bar or Settings → General)
Advanced Search	Multi-criteria boolean search with filename, extension, size, date, content, tags, and regex
Smart Folders	Virtual file cart -- collect files from any directory and operate on them as a batch
Preview Mode	Inline preview panel for images, text, PDFs, and media files
Thumbnail Grid	Visual grid mode for image-heavy directories
Command Palette	Cmd+Shift+P to access any command by name
AI Features	Semantic search, auto-classification, smart tagging, AI rename (all local-first)
Archive Support	Browse ZIP, 7z, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, RAR, ZSTD archives as virtual folders
Remote Connections	FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV, SMB, AFP, NFS, and cloud storage
Developer Tools	Git panel, SSH tunnel manager, Docker container file editing
Custom Shortcuts	Remap 120+ commands via Settings, with conflict detection
Theme Engine	12 built-in themes, custom theme editor (independent window, Apply button + Live Apply toggle), community .ultratheme sharing, distinct cursor / selection colors
Viewer Windows	Log Viewer, Git Panel, Hex Editor, 3-Way Merge, EXIF Editor, File Diff, Directory Diff, Media Info — each as independent NSPanel (multi-instance, ESC to close)
Terminal pin / follow	Every integrated terminal session starts 🔒 pinned to its cwd; click the lock to switch to ⇆ follow mode where the terminal's cwd tracks the active panel
Total Commander key compatibility	F2 rename, Shift+F5 duplicate, Alt+F5 pack, Alt+F9 unpack, Insert toggle-select, Ctrl+U swap panels, Opt+← / Opt+→ copy path to opposite panel, right-drag cursor tracking (1.0.7+), Shift/⌘/⌃ + click selection modifiers (1.0.7+)
HWP → PDF	Convert Korean Hangul Word Processor files to PDF via bundled LibreOffice. HWPX (2010+) is handled via auto-retry and, on failure, an Open in Hancom / Polaris Office passthrough when those apps are installed.
Bundled 7zz	Universal Mach-O (x86_64 + arm64, LGPL-2.1). Password-protected / WinZip AES / LZMA / PKZIP 5.1+ zips open out of the box — no brew install p7zip required (1.0.7+).
Recent Folders	Go > Recent Folders surfaces the last 12 most-frecent directories by visit count × 7-day half-life (1.0.7+). Up to 40 entries stored; dead paths filtered before display.
AI Search onboarding	First-time users who invoke AI semantic search while the index is empty see a focused pitch card with one-click Index Home Folder (1.0.7+).

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System Requirements

Requirement	Minimum	Recommended
macOS Version	macOS 14 Sonoma	macOS 15 Sequoia or later
Processor	Intel Core i5 or Apple M1	Apple M1 Pro or later
Memory	4 GB RAM	8 GB RAM or more
Disk Space	150 MB for app	500 MB including AI models
Display	1280 x 800	1440 x 900 or larger

Note: Unifyl Basic is optimized for Apple Silicon but fully supports Intel Macs. AI features such as semantic search and auto-classification leverage the Apple Neural Engine on M-series chips for maximum performance and privacy.

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Installation

From DMG (Direct Download)

1. Download the latest .dmg file from the official website or GitHub Releases page.
2. Double-click the downloaded .dmg file to mount the disk image.
3. Drag Unifyl Basic.app into your Applications folder.
4. Eject the disk image.
5. Launch Unifyl Basic from Applications or Spotlight (Cmd+Space, type "Unifyl").

First Launch Security

On first launch, macOS Gatekeeper may display a warning because the app is downloaded from the internet:

1. If you see "Unifyl Basic can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer":
   • Open System Settings > Privacy & Security.
   • Scroll down to the Security section.
   • Click Open Anyway next to the Unifyl Basic message.
2. Alternatively, right-click (or Control-click) the app in Finder and select Open from the context menu, then click Open in the dialog.

Automatic Updates (Sparkle)

Unifyl Basic uses the Sparkle framework for automatic updates:

• On launch, the app checks for updates in the background.
• When an update is available, a notification appears with release notes.
• Click Install Update to download and apply the update automatically.
• You can configure update checking frequency in Settings > General.

Granting Permissions

Unifyl Basic may request the following permissions:

Permission	Purpose	How to Grant
Full Disk Access	Browse protected directories (~/Library, Time Machine backups)	System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access > Add Unifyl Basic
Downloads Folder	Access the Downloads folder for Smart Folder presets	Granted automatically on first access
Removable Volumes	Browse external drives and USB devices	System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files and Folders
Network	Remote connections (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, cloud)	Granted automatically

Tip: For the best experience, grant Full Disk Access so Unifyl can browse all directories without restrictions.

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Editions and Pricing

Edition	Price	Key Features
Free	$0	Single/dual pane, basic search, FTP/SFTP, 2 cloud services, ZIP archives
Pro	$39.99 (one-time)	All features including AI, all cloud/protocols, multi-rename, compare/sync, advanced search. Up to 3 devices per license.

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Performance Targets

Unifyl Basic is engineered for speed:

Metric	Target
App launch (cold start)	< 1 second
100,000-file folder load	< 0.5 seconds
File copy (10 GB)	95%+ of native Finder speed
Local search response	< 100 ms
AI semantic search	< 500 ms
Base memory usage	< 150 MB

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Getting Help

• Command Palette: Press Cmd+Shift+P to search for any command by name.
• Function Key Bar: The bottom bar always shows F1-F8 actions for the most common operations.
• F1 -- Help: Press F1 at any time to open context-sensitive help.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: See the complete shortcut reference or open Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts to view and customize all bindings.

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Architecture Note

Unifyl Basic is built with:

• Swift 6.0 with strict concurrency
• SwiftUI + AppKit hybrid UI
• VFS (Virtual File System) abstraction for unified local/remote file access
• CoreML + Metal for local AI processing
• Actor-based concurrency for thread-safe file operations

All AI processing is performed locally on your Mac -- no data leaves your device unless you explicitly configure a cloud AI provider.