Android Collection-14 : Let’s Check For Best File Manager For Android

File Managers are really important for a smartphone. In fact it’s more exclusive for android. You will need a file manager badly many times. They help users to better manage the space on their SD card, making it easier to find what they don’t need and delete it. However these is not the end. Nowadays most File Managers also bring additional functions to the table, in the hope to make life for the everyday user that much simpler. Like, they have WIFI File Transfer Web & FTP/App Manager, Copy, Paste, Move, Create and Rename your files and folders, FTP/HTTP Server to Share & Manage your files without a USB cable, Text viewers and editors, Task killer, Root explorer and many more! So you might already have sensed how important is it. So it’s really really important to make sure that you have a good featured file manager installed on you phone. Don’t worry, here I am sharing 8 of them. Oh! I have forgotten to say that this is the Last post under “Android Collection”. Though I have missed many categories, but I think it’s the perfect time to end this! Please wait for “Best Of Android” and “Android Tips” series, though it might take a while as me too a new Android user.

 

What is A File Manager?

A file manager or file browser is a program that provides a user interface to work with file systems. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files are: create, open, edit, view, print, play, rename, move, copy, delete, search/find, and modify attributes, properties and permissions. Files are typically displayed in a hierarchy. Some file managers contain features inspired by web browsers, including forward and back navigational buttons.

Some file managers provide network connectivity via protocols, such as FTP, NFS, SMB or WebDAV. This is achieved by allowing the user to browse for a file server (connecting and accessing the server's file system like a local file system) or by providing its own full client implementations for file server protocols.

Now let’s move out.

 

1. File Expert

Sometimes I wonder why this app still not much familiar! From my short user experience, I found this and in my opinion, it’s the BEST among the other file manager available for android. It has a lots of pro’s like it provides Easy to use for batch file operations, Easy HTTP and FTP file sharing setup, Allows easy access to the folders you use the most, will install and uninstall silently for root users, Allows you to install a batch of applications without having to accept individual permissions, has a Customizable toolbar to get easy access to the functions you use the most and All of the functionality of a application manager, file explorer, and archive manager rolled into one. Seems great, isn’t it? But the worst thing is Application is highly useful but lacks any good visuals and this sometime defy most of the users as we normally check for visualization 1st, how good it looks, how cool the interface it!

The best part of File Expert is the ease of performing batch file operations. Simply Just check the box next to the files that need to be copied, then perform only copy and paste like any other file manager. No need to go through a string of menus to achieve the same result.

File Expert also supports a silent install and uninstall option.It’s for rooted users only. This feature allows users with a rooted phone to perform the installation of applications without having to accept application permissions (but accepting them is recommended). This feature also allows users to batch uninstall applications without having to verify the uninstall process. This allows the user to save time while installing more than one application and would be very useful when restoring backed up applications after a wipe.

Another feature of File Expert is it’s “Favorites” tab. This allows the user to add the folders they use the most to a list of favorites for easy access. This prevents you from having to browse through all the folders on your phone every time you want to copy a music file from your downloads to your music folder.

File Expert’s final niche feature is it’s ability to support both HTTP and FTP file transfers from a computer. I was able to set up this feature in a matter of seconds through the share interface. It was very easy to use and highly useful to transfer files off a desktop to a phone without the use of wires.

Watch The Tutorial Video Below:

 

2. Astro File Manager

Astro is a file manager, backup utility and task manager packaged in a single app. On the other hand, add-on modules such as Networking and Bluetooth modules can be installed on the top of it to enhance the overall capabilities.

As a file manager, files can be searched, edited and added to a bookmark list. It can backup your default and third party apps to SD card. It can also extract zip and tar files to phone memory or the SD card. Process manager or Task killer is another key feature of Astro. Apps, services and processes can be stopped, at the same time giving user key details of CPU and memory usage.

You can use Astro File Manager to Download any file with browser, Browse, create, extract zip files, Back up and restore public applications to the SD card, Create shortcuts, Send files as attachments, Thumbnails, Multi-select, Search, Image, Text, HTML Viewers.

 

 

3. ES File Explorer

EStrong’s file manager A.K.A. ES File Explorer is another top class competitor for android’s best file manager software. The key features of this is, it have App/Process/File Manager, Root Explorer, Explorer on phone & LAN Shared & FTP & Bluetooth, Play audio/video using chosen player/stream playing, view texts/images or other files with associated app.

EStrongs file explorer is a file manager with an added ability to access LAN and FTP files as well. Files can be viewed with all the basic editing options (cut, copy, paste, delete, rename). Applications can be viewed and a backup can be created for market and third party apps. Files can be copied to and from computer online storage via LAN and FTP options. Music and videos can be streamed from computer to phone and vice versa.

This app comes with an app manager and SD card analyzer. Security and task manager add-ons have to be downloaded separately though. Security manager provides application protection, threat scanning, remote locker and backup features. Both process killer and uninstaller comes as part of Task Manager add-on.

Watch The Video Below

 

4. AndroZip File Manager

AndroZip, like Astro, provides the most basic of Android file manager functions. One of the key differences is that it can browse the SD Card and the Operating System. Although it must be said that only users who know what they are doing should play with any operating system file. Another difference is the ability for AndroZip to compress files into a ZIP, TAR, or GZIP archive. This may help you save space or it can be used to e-mail large files. AndroZip also has its own task manager and the ability to back up market-installed applications.

Some features are, it Work with archives: ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP - Beta, GZIP, TAR, BZIP2

Create ZIP,TAR,GZIP, works as aFile manager with multiple/batch delete, move, copy, create ZIP, also a Task killer, application manager, it can Install apps: APK files, Short tap and long tap menus, Send files via mail, AndroZip can also unpack 7Zip (BETA under development) files but if dictionary file used to create 7Zip file is less or equal 6 MB. If it is larger (like 64 MB ... 1 GB) then due to limited RAM size unpack operation will fail.

 

5. Root Explorer

It is the only file manager on our list that is targeted towards root users, with Root Explorer users can access the entire file system even those folders that require root privileges. Also it enables users to view SQLite database content whilst also providing all of the normal features that comes with a File Manager.

If you're not using Root Explorer on your rooted Android phone or tablet, you should be.  It's an easy way to work with the files on your device, using a graphical interface that so many of us are used to.  To make a good thing even better, while updating things to work with Gingerbread (thanks to the release of the SDK), Speed Software has added a couple changes to make things even better -- support for the upload dialog in the Dropbox app, and displaying the correct icon for installed applications instead of the generic icon it has used until now.

 

6. Dual File Manager

Are you familiar with BlueFTP for Java, Android or PC? This comes from the same Medieval Developer group like BlueFTP.Dual File manager is an easy to use file explorer with dual tabs for quick file transfer. One unique feature is to show thumbnails of images and folders, which greatly helps in browsing. Sadly images themselves cannot be viewed. Files can be searched and basic editing methods can be processed. Zip and Tar compressions can be generated for files and folders by doing a long tap on any file or folder. Files can be shared as well using the same feature.

It features Double page explorer browser,Thumbnails for APK, audio, video, image (also inside ZIP), Compress Zip (encrypt w/ password), GZip, Tar, Search files also inside Zip, GZ, Tar, Extract Zip (AES and legacy 2.0), GZ, Tar, Test check archive integrity, Calculate MD5 & CRC32, Desktop folders, Multi language, Multi-select, Home folder, Streaming, File sort, Bookmarks and more.

 

So this ends “Android Collection” series. Now what? Oh please don’t hang up and check back regularly for the “Best Of Android” and “Android Tips” series.