Duo: Holo File Manager w/ Root

A Holo-styled file browser with root capabilities and split views.

THIS APPLICATION IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANDROID 5.0 YET.

This is the free version with ads. A paid version with no ads and no internet permission is also available, along with some free plugins.

App website: http://duofm.bitbucket.org

Youtube channel: http://youtube.com/uncopt

Duo: Holo File Manager w/ Root (DuoFM for short, formerly UNCOPT File Browser), aims to be your go-to app for everything file-related on your android device.

It is similar to Windows Explorer or Mac finder on your computer. Just like them, it can be used to access files on the device, and also to browse the files on your network or on cloud services.

DuoFM combines the features of the popular file managers (like Astro, ES Explorer, Solid Explorer, ...) and root explorers.

Its two main focus points are design and stability.

The application fits perfectly within the modern android holographic (Holo) style that was introduced with Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich or ICS). It looks and feels as if it was one of the apps bundled with the core of android, and follows Google design guidelines perfectly. At the same time, it improves on usability thanks to its innovative dual (split) navigation pane that is fully adjustable, and its navigation spinner in the action bar. DuoFM has also been optimized to adapt its layout on a tablet.

Extra attention is being placed on stability. This is about not crashing and having features that work the way you expect them to. This includes a lot of little things, such as restoring the state correctly when coming back from the background, or reacting to outside changes.

This mindset drove us to take unusual approaches to the way we implemented some of the core features. Those differences might not be noticeable at first, but they participate in making DuoFM rock solid and enable workflows that other applications don't support.

Two of those decisions stand out.

The first is that we developped a native api (in c) to query the filesystem. This allowed us to use the same highly optimized api for accessing files on user accessible storage areas (such as the sdcard) or on root-only partitions. We extended that api to enable access to archive content as if they were simple directories on the filesystem, including nested archives.

The second is that we decided to never create any intermediate copies, not on the filesystem and not in memory. We support opening / sending / copying files of any size, without requiring any space left on the internal or external storage. This is true for all directories: local, remote (over the network or in the cloud), or inside archives. We stream the data to the target directory or application.

The various storage areas (internal memory, sdcards) are automatically detected, including On-The-Go (OTG) USB attachments when available. No user specification is required.

Access to files not located on the device or its attachements is done through plugins. This separation is done to keep the main application small and to let users decide what extra feature to install. The available plugins are listed in the settings.

So far, the following plugins are available (and free):

- LAN: to give access to the local network shares (windows, SAMBA or SMB).

- Google Drive

- SkyDrive

- Dropbox

When superuser (root) is enabled, partitions can be automatically remounted in rw, and permissions (including suid, guid and sticky bits), group and owner can be changed easily.

For details about all the features, our roadmap and how to contact us, please visit our website at http://duofm.bitbucket.org

We also have a bug tracker (no registration is required). You'll find a link to it in the settings of the app or on our webpage.