Comment by networked

I am. My desktop computing has shifted towards fish + vidir, but I use Total Commander for Android on my phone all the time. I have wondered why. What is the difference? Is it just the input method (easier to type shell commands on a physical keyboard)? Well, I don't think so.

The orthodox file manager was created for copying files between two disks. File management on my phone still follows the same pattern: copy or move something between the phone's storage and, for example, an SFTP remote. The remote directories are pretty stable; it makes sense to bookmark them.

Meanwhile, on my computer one-off mass copying has become rare compared to the era of removable media. Most of my mass file operations are moving files to or from a subdirectory in a code project or renaming them. This is an awkward fit for an OFM: you need to go to directory A, duplicate its path to the other pane, switch to the other pane, and then navigate up or down a level to directory B. A dynamic "parent directory" or "../foo/" second pane might help.