v1.1.0

Pane 1.1.0

What's new

A new logo

Pane has a new logo: a stack of document trays. You'll see it on the taskbar, in the Start menu and at the start of the welcome tour.

Before

After

Errors look like errors

When something fails, the message now has a red cross and stays until you close it. Before, some failures showed a green tick and went away.

Before

After

Also in this release

• Messages that are neither done nor failed, like a cancelled copy or "Open a folder to paste into", show a neutral icon.
• Extracting several archives ends with one message that names each one that failed and why.
• What's new shows Before and After for changes you can see.

Fixed

• A rename Windows refused showed a green tick.
• An address that couldn't be found or opened showed a green tick.
• "Couldn't open with" an app showed a green tick.
• An archive that failed to extract still ended with "Extracted successfully" and a green tick; a failed new archive showed a green tick too.
• A cancelled copy or move showed a green tick.

Install

Download Pane_1.1.0_x64-setup.exe below and run it. Pane already installed? It updates itself and shows this guide the first time it starts (and any time in Settings → About → What's new).

v1.0.1

Pane 1.0.1

A fix release for 1.0.0. Nothing new to learn: Pane just stays responsive.

Fixed

• No freeze on the first start after the update. 1.0.0 cleaned up its database on the first start before showing the window, which could take seconds on a large folder-size cache. That clean-up now runs in the background.
• No more stalls while browsing. Quick Access, recent folders and drive lists no longer wait on the folder-size database or a sleeping disk.
• Lighter on low-end PCs. Folder sizes save far fewer disk writes (one per folder visit instead of one per subfolder), catching up on changes made while Pane was closed no longer re-reads the open folders over and over, and idle size threads sleep instead of keeping a CPU core busy.
• Sizes stay right across restarts. A change made just before Pane started could be missed and keep showing the old size; it is now always picked up.
• Updating from before 1.0 still shows the welcome tour and then What's new for 1.0.

v1.0.0

Pane 1.0.0

What's new

A tour of what Pane can do

Seven short steps, all live: search as you type, open folders in every view, open a second pane and drag a file across, peek with Space, delete and undo, pick your theme.

Undo, and the Recycle Bin inside Pane

Deleted something by mistake? Ctrl+Z puts it back where it was, and undoes moves, copies and renames too. The Recycle Bin opens in Pane: restore, or delete for good.

Cut, copy and paste with every app

Ctrl+X, C and V use the Windows clipboard, so files move between Pane, Explorer and your other apps. Big copies run in the background with progress and Cancel.

Search that finds things fast

Results come in as you type, grouped into exact, word and partial matches, each with the file's real icon. Filter to files or folders.

Columns: arrows, sizes and date sections

← → move between columns. View options → Show sizes puts each size next to the arrow, in Tree too. Downloads shows Today, Yesterday and Last week.

Choose file icons in one place

The File icons dialog: your system's icons or Pane's own, kind by kind, with a filter.

Light, Balanced or Full

Choose how much of your PC Pane uses for indexing, folder sizes and thumbnails. Light runs on one core at low priority.

Type %APPDATA% and go

The address bar opens %APPDATA%, %LOCALAPPDATA%, ~, shell:startup and folder names like Downloads. A path that isn't there says so.

Lighter previews

Photos are decoded at the preview's size, and very large videos open on a still frame and play when you press K. Text and Markdown files wrap long lines; code keeps its lines.

Also in this release

• Right-click → More options shows the Windows menu and your apps' commands. Drag one into the menu to keep it there.
• Properties and Copy as path in the right-click menu.
• A delete that fails says which file and why.
• Right-click a folder → Open in new tab.
• Drop a folder between Quick Access entries to put it exactly there.
• Check for updates in Settings → About.
• Search results show each file's real icon.
• File and folder sizes in Tree view, too.
• Up and Down follow the date order in Downloads.

Install

Download Pane_1.0.0_x64-setup.exe below and run it. Pane already installed? It updates itself and shows this guide the first time it starts (and any time in Settings → About → What's new).

v0.0.22

Pane 0.0.22 (Windows)

New

• Quick Look volume: video and audio previews now have a volume bar next to mute. Click or drag it, or use the mouse wheel over it. Pane remembers the volume and mute for the next preview and the next time you open Pane.

Fixes

• Quick Look in Columns view: the arrow keys now move through the column of the selected file, as a click there would, instead of jumping back to the first column.
• Quick Look with Vibrancy themes: the preview panel is now solid, so the window behind it no longer shows through.

v0.0.21

Pane 0.0.21 (Windows)

New

• Quick Look: select a file and press Space to preview it without opening another app, like Finder on a Mac. Press Space or Esc to close it. The arrow keys move to the next file and the preview follows.
  • Photos: JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF, BMP, SVG, plus HEIC, AVIF and camera RAW through Windows. Photos are shown the right way up.
  • Video and audio: they play right in the preview, with play/pause, a scrubber and mute. K plays or pauses. Audio shows its cover art, title and artist.
  • PDF: scroll through the pages, which are drawn as you reach them.
  • Text and code: shown with line numbers (the first 256 KB of large files).
  • Other files: Office documents and other files with a Windows thumbnail show it large. Anything else shows its icon, kind, size and date. Folders show how many items they hold.
  • Open with the default app: use the button in the header or press Enter. F switches between the panel and the full window, and Pane remembers your choice.

Pane decodes nothing itself: pictures, video and audio are decoded by Windows and WebView2, so Pane ships no codecs. Formats Windows can't play show their thumbnail when Windows has one. Like Explorer, you can add formats with the codec extensions from the Microsoft Store.

Fixes

• Very large images (above 40 megapixels) are scaled down while they are decoded, so a single image can't make Pane use gigabytes of memory. This also applies to thumbnails.

v0.0.20

Pane 0.0.20 (Windows)

New

• Folders update by themselves: when another app creates, renames or deletes a file in the folder you're looking at (a browser finishing a download, an unzip, a build), Pane shows it within about a second, without Refresh. Your selection, scroll position, a rename you're typing and a drag in progress are left alone. Tabs in the background update when you switch to them, and the same folder updates in both panes.
• Deleted folder: if another app deletes the folder a tab shows, the tab goes up to the nearest folder that still exists, like Explorer.

Works on fixed NTFS drives (that is, normal internal drives). USB sticks, FAT/exFAT drives and network shares still need Refresh. Pane holds no lock on the folders it shows, so other apps can still rename or move them and their parents. While a browser is still downloading a file, its size updates when writing starts and when the download finishes, not continuously.

Fixes

• Reading a folder no longer runs on the window's thread, so a slow disk can't freeze the window while a folder loads.

v0.0.19

Pane 0.0.19 (Windows)

Fixes

• No coloured window border on Windows 10: with "Show accent color on title bars and window borders" turned on, Windows 10 drew a border in the accent colour around Pane's window. On Windows 10 Pane now draws its own thin border in the theme's colour instead (hidden while maximized). The window no longer has a drop shadow on Windows 10. Windows 11 is unchanged.

v0.0.18

Pane 0.0.18 (Windows)

Fixes

• Smooth window dragging with Dark/Light Vibrancy on Windows 10: the window no longer lags behind the cursor while you drag or resize it. On Windows 10 and Windows 11 21H2, Vibrancy now uses the system blur instead of acrylic (which Windows renders slowly on those versions); Windows 11 22H2 and later keep acrylic as before.

v0.0.17-beta.9

Pane 0.0.17 beta 9 (Windows)

Fixes

• Double-click opens every file again: files whose default app is a Microsoft Store-style app (for example HTML files with Arc as the default browser) now open on double-click, Enter or Open, not only through Open with. Pane now starts the default app the same way File Explorer does. File names containing % also open correctly.

v0.0.17-beta.8

Pane 0.0.17 beta 8 (Windows)

Changes

• Dropdowns look like Pane's menus: every dropdown in Settings opens on the same surface as the right-click menu, with a check mark next to the current choice. Arrow keys, Enter, Escape and typing a letter work as before.
• Simpler Settings: the header is just the back arrow with the title next to it, and the Font Family setting is gone; Pane always uses Inter.
• HEIC to PNG conversion removed: Pane no longer offers to convert HEIC photos. HEIC thumbnails still come from Windows (with the HEIF and HEVC extensions from the Microsoft Store).
• Old leftovers cleaned up: installing this version deletes the unused vendor\heif\libheif.dll that Pane 0.0.16 and older left in the install folder.

Fixes

• The update notification now has the same layout and spacing as Pane's other notifications.