Tips

Various tricks that don't fit in other pages:

Shortcuts

• Middle-click or shift-click the ChromaFiler icon in your taskbar to open a new window
• Use the Windows Run dialog (Win+R) to open any folder in ChromaFiler by typing chromafiler followed by the path.
  • If you have ChromaFiler installed as your default file browser, you only need to enter the folder path.
• Add the ChromaFiler install directory to the PATH environment variable to launch it anywhere from a command line. Use chromafiler . to open the current working directory.

Special Folders

Windows has some useful special folders which are hard to locate normally. You can navigate to them in ChromaFiler using the Run dialog or by launching from command line (see above), and then pin them to the Tray for easy access.

• shell:AppsFolder (Windows 8+): List of all installed applications that would normally appear in the Start menu
• shell:Recent: List of recently opened files
• shell:History: Recent files, organized by date
• shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6} (Windows 10+): Quick Access / Home
• shell:::{E88865EA-0E1C-4E20-9AA6-EDCD0212C87C} (Windows 11): Gallery
• Control Panels:
  • shell:ChangeRemoveProgramsFolder: Programs and Features
  • shell:ConnectionsFolder: Network Connections
  • shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}: Devices and Printers

Search

ChromaFiler can view saved "Search Results" folders. These are special folders which automatically update their contents based on your search criteria. They can be created using File Explorer (instructions here)

Right-click drag

Currently proxy icons don't support right-click drags. This can occasionally be a useful operation, for example to extract a zip file to a specific destination. As a workaround, you can begin a drag with the left mouse button, then switch to the right in the middle of the drag. While holding the left button, press the right and then release the left. When you let go of the right button at the destination, you will get a menu of options for moving the file, beyond what's available with the standard modifier keys.

Command line switches

These can be used when starting ChromaFiler from the command line.

• /text Open the specified file with the text editor. If no file is specified, open a new scratch file.
• /tray Open the tray. Opening multiple trays at once could cause issues!
• /embedding: Start ChromaFiler in the background without opening a window. You probably won't ever need this.