Scan any folder into a searchable catalog, capture over 90 metadata fields, measure loudness, check files against a delivery spec, find duplicates, and export to CSV, Excel, JSON, and more. Everything runs on your Mac.
It scans a folder, drive, or network volume and builds a catalog of every file inside, with names, paths, sizes, dates, and detailed metadata. You can then search the catalog, hold it to a delivery spec, measure loudness, find duplicates, verify checksums, and export the whole thing to CSV, TSV, Excel, JSON, XML, HTML, PDF, Markdown, property list, or plain text.
Drag a folder onto the FileLister window, or use Add Folder from the toolbar. The first time you scan a location, macOS may ask you to grant access to that folder or drive. After you approve it, the scan runs and the catalog fills in.
On Apple Silicon, FileLister processes roughly 100,000 files in under a minute for a standard scan. Turning on heavier options like checksums or deep image analysis adds time, since each file has to be read in full rather than just listed.
CSV, TSV, Excel (with thumbnails for image files), JSON, XML, HTML, PDF, Markdown, property list, and plain text. Pick CSV or Excel for spreadsheets, JSON when a script will read the file, and PDF or HTML when the list is a deliverable someone will just look at. Every format writes the columns in the order you arranged them.
FileLister uses Apple's Vision and Natural Language frameworks to look inside images and documents, so you can search by what a file contains rather than only its name. A photo of a beach can be found by searching for beach even if the file is called IMG_4821.jpg. This runs on-device and does not upload anything.
Yes. FileLister computes MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256 checksums, then groups files that share the same hash. Because the match is on content, it catches duplicates that have different names or live in different folders, and it does not create false matches from files that merely share a size.
Over 90 fields. EXIF for photos (camera, lens, exposure, GPS if present); video codec and variant, frame rate, capture frame rate, dimensions, bit rate, colour primaries, transfer characteristics, HDR status and start timecode; audio codec, sample rate, bit depth, channel count, track count and a per-track layout; dates, file kind, checksums, and the on-demand loudness and key-frame measurements. You choose which columns to show and export.
Yes. You can catalog external drives, mounted network volumes such as an SMB share, and iCloud Drive, not just your local disk. This makes it useful for keeping a searchable record of drives you store offline.
No. All scanning, metadata reading, hashing, and AI analysis happen locally on your Mac. FileLister does not collect data and does not need a network connection to work.
Yes. FileLister integrates with the Shortcuts app, so you can build a Shortcut that scans a fixed folder and writes a dated export to a reports directory, then run it on a schedule or from a menu.
Smart Collections are saved views that refresh automatically each time you rescan a folder, so a set like large videos or files added this month stays current without you rebuilding it by hand.
Create a filter set under Filter Sets in the sidebar. A set has a scope (which files it covers, usually "is a video") and a list of requirements such as video codec equals Apple ProRes 422, frame rate equals 25, pixel width at least 1920. Enable the set and every covered file in the listing gets a verdict as it scans. Sets combine as alternatives: a file passes if it satisfies every requirement of at least one enabled set, which is how a folder holding two different deliverables can be checked against both at once.
Tools → Filter Check, which offers Off, Flag Failures and Only Failures with a checkmark on the active one. Only Failures also has a shortcut, Shift-Command-L. The same three modes are in the check control in the filter bar above the listing, which reads "Check" normally and "8 failing" when there are failures.
File → Export Failing Files. It writes a tab-separated file listing each failing file, what it does not meet, and its path, which is the artefact you send back to whoever supplied the media. It follows the source you have selected in the sidebar and any active filters, so the list matches what you are looking at. Separately, in Only Failures mode the listing itself is narrowed to the failures, so any normal export - CSV included - contains only those files.
Yes. Right-click a file you know is right and choose Accept as Filter Set. FileLister drafts a set from that file's own metadata and opens it for editing before saving, so you can loosen the values - the accepted file may be exactly 1920 wide, but the requirement you want is usually "at least 1920".
Select the audio or video files and choose Tools → Measure Loudness, or use the same command in the right-click menu. FileLister measures integrated loudness in LUFS, loudness range in LU and true peak in dBTP to EBU R 128 and ITU-R BS.1770-4, over the whole file. The results appear as columns and in the Media tab of the inspector. It is a separate command rather than part of a scan because it decodes every audio sample.
Yes. Loudness, loudness range and true peak are ordinary fields once measured, so a requirement like "true peak at most -1" or "loudness between -24 and -22" works like any other. Until the measurement has run for a file, a requirement on it reports as not yet judged rather than as a failure.
It answers whether a clip is all-intra - every frame a key frame - which some delivery specs require. The answer is not in the container header; it means walking the sample table. Select the clips and choose Tools → Analyze Key Frames. FileLister reports the longest run between key frames rather than the average, because "every frame" is a claim about every frame and an average rounds a file with real P-frames down to 1.
Because the value the requirement needs was never read. If "Read extended media metadata" is off in Settings, no file has a codec or frame rate recorded, and reporting every video as failing a codec rule would be false. The same applies to loudness and key-frame requirements before those measurements have run. FileLister says so and, where relevant, offers to fix it.
View → Choose & Arrange Columns (Command-J), then the Arrange tab. It lists the columns you are showing, in order, with each width in points beside it; drag a row to move it. That order is what the table draws and what every export writes - CSV, TSV, Excel, JSON, HTML, PDF, Markdown and Copy as Table alike.
Yes. A preset stores which columns, in what order, and at what width, and an exported preset carries all three in a small JSON file that a colleague can import to reproduce the same layout. Preset files saved by earlier versions still import; they simply carry no widths and leave the current ones alone.
Yes - the column set, its order and its widths are restored when you reopen the app. Layout → Reset Widths in the Columns panel puts the widths back to the app's own defaults. A window narrower than the columns ask for will still compress them to fit, so the number shown in the panel is what is stored rather than what is on screen.
Yes. Tools → Compare Folders shows what was added, removed and changed between two locations, and can refine the comparison by hash so a file that was touched but is byte-identical is not reported as modified.
A checksum file written alongside a delivery, listing each file and its hash. Tools → Hash Sidecar writes one, and the same command verifies a delivery against an existing sidecar later - which is how you confirm that what arrived is byte-for-byte what was sent.
Yes. Tools → Catalog This Drive keeps a searchable record of a drive, and Search All Disks queries every catalog you have made, so you can find which disk a file is on before going to look for it.
FileLister requires macOS 13.0 or later and is built for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Folder inventory and file catalog for macOS with metadata, checksums, duplicate detection, and multi-format export.
Turn any folder into a spreadsheet in a few steps.
Match files by content, not by name.
Because the match is on the file contents, copies with different names or in different folders still land in the same group.
Try this in FileLister: Folder Inventory →Write the spec down once, then let every file be measured against it.
Filter sets combine as alternatives, so a folder holding two different deliverables can be held to both at once - a file passes if it satisfies either set in full.
Try this in FileLister: Folder Inventory →Integrated loudness, loudness range and true peak, over the whole file.
The measurement decodes every audio sample, so it is a separate command rather than part of a scan. A file with no audio track is skipped rather than reported as silent.
Try this in FileLister: Folder Inventory →Columns, their order and their widths, in one small file.
The exported file carries the order as the array order and each width alongside its column, so the layout is reproduced rather than approximated. That order is also the order every export writes.
Try this in FileLister: Folder Inventory →Our support team usually replies within one business day.
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