File Browser Panel

The File Browser (Window → Browse Local Files) lets you navigate and open files from any of the app's storage locations without leaving the app.

The File Browser with the folder tree on the left and the files pane on the right, here shown in details view with metadata columns.

Layout

The panel is divided into two resizable panes separated by a draggable splitter:

Area	Description
Path bar	Breadcrumb path showing the current location. Click any segment to jump up to that folder.
Folders pane (left)	Tree of storage roots and subdirectories. Click a folder to show its contents in the files pane.
Files pane (right)	Files in the selected folder, shown as a thumbnail grid or a details list depending on the view size. Double-click a file to open it.

Thumbnails & View Size

The slider at the bottom-right of the files pane sets the view size. Drag it left for a compact details view — a table with one row per file (see the screenshot above) — or right to grow the cells into a thumbnail grid. Thumbnails are decoded from the real file contents.

Metadata Columns

In details view each file gets a row of metadata columns. The columns populate themselves from whatever information the files actually expose — beyond the basics (name, size, modified date) you'll see things like pixel width/height, color mode, format type, frame and layer counts, and any format-specific fields the decoder reports (for example the amiga_mode or description columns visible above for the retro image formats).

Action	How to
Sort	Click a column header to sort by it; click again to reverse the order. Folders always sort ahead of files.
Reorder columns	Drag a column header sideways to move it.
Autosize a column	Double-click a column's right edge to size it to fit its contents.
Choose columns	Right-click any column header to open a menu and toggle which metadata columns are shown.

Video Thumbnails & Scrubbing

Video and other multi-frame files (movies, animations, GIFs) get a live thumbnail too. Move the mouse horizontally across a video thumbnail to scrub through it: a red seek line follows the cursor and the cell repaints to the frame at that position, so you can preview a clip's contents without opening it.

Archives as Folders

Archive files — .zip, .lha, .msa and the like — are treated as folders. They appear with an archive-folder icon and an expand arrow; open one to browse the files inside it exactly as you would a normal directory, and archives can be nested. Files inside an archive open, thumbnail, and scrub just like loose files.

Browsing inside a .zip archive — here a Spider-Man 2 trailer encoded with Sorenson video in a QuickTime .mov, nested inside the zip. The thumbnail is being hover-scrubbed to a specific frame, with the red seek line tracking the cursor.

Storage Locations

Root	Description
Local	Browser-local storage (IndexedDB virtual filesystem). Always available; persists across sessions.
Local Root Folders	Folders on your computer that you have granted access to, via the File System Access API. Right-click in the folder tree → Add to Local Root Folders… to grant one, and Remove from Local Root Folders on a granted folder to revoke access again — see Using Local Files.
Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive	Cloud storage. Appears when signed in to the respective service.

Opening Files

Double-click any file to open it. If the file type is supported it is decoded and added as a new document. Right-click a file or folder to access a context menu with additional operations.

Files and folders get different context menus. A folder is a place, so its menu offers ways to go there (Open, Open in New Tab, Open in New Window) plus the file-management commands. Commands that need file contents — Open As…, Open in Paintapp, Place in document, Open in new browser tab — appear only for files. Archives count as files here: they browse like folders but can also be opened and placed like any other file.

File & Folder Operations

Action	How to
Open a file	Double-click the thumbnail in the files pane.
Open a folder in its own tab or window	Right-click the folder → Open in New Tab or Open in New Window.
New folder	Right-click inside the files pane → New Folder.
Rename	Right-click the file or folder → Rename.
Delete	Right-click the file or folder → Delete. This deletes the real file and cannot be undone.
Grant a folder on your computer	Right-click in the folder tree → Add to Local Root Folders….
Revoke a granted folder	Right-click it under Local Root Folders → Remove from Local Root Folders. Revokes access only — the folder and its files stay on your disk.

A folder listed directly under Local Root Folders is a permission, not a place Paintapp owns, so Delete, Rename and Move To are not offered for it — they would change the real folder on your computer. Use Remove from Local Root Folders to drop it from Paintapp. Everything inside a granted folder behaves like any other file or folder.

Standalone Mode

The File Browser can also be opened as a full standalone page at filebrowser.html, optionally with a ?path=/some/path query parameter to start at a specific location. This is useful for linking directly to a folder from outside the main app.