FileBrowser is an iOS app that allows you to connect to PCs, cloud services, local servers, and FTP servers. It’s a very powerful tool that allows you to connect to your PC to browse the files on it from your iPad, or upload files to a FTP server. It also supports the latest iOS features such as drag and drop, so you can drag things in from Files and drop them into FileBrowser.
FileBrowser allows you to connect to a huge amount of devices, including:
- Windows
- Mac
- Linux
- Time Capsule
- NAS drives
- WiFi drives
- Cloud services such as Dropbox
- WebDAV
- FTP and SFTP
The app includes a powerful previewer letting you preview files such as Office and Pages documents, PDFs, HTML pages and many more. The app supports multi-tasking and split screening, so you can drag files over into your server from another app.
You can also do powerful actions within the app, such as duplicating a file, exporting it to another app, and even creating a link to that file that you can add to another app. Then, when you tap on it, you’ll open the file you linked in FileBrowser. FileBrowser also gives you the ability to change permissions for each file, and view the last edit date and the size of the file.
Another handy feature of FileBrowser is the ability to have tabs, so you can quickly switch between different folders on your server or computer, and drag and drop across the tabs.
FileBrowser also offers a Files app extension, which allows you to browse the network folders that you setup in FileBrowser in the Files app. I find this really useful as it lets me upload files easily from apps that don’t support FTP by bringing up the Files picker menu, and selecting the FTP server I want to upload it to.
I use FileBrowser mainly for uploading to FTP servers to maintain this site and other sites, but FileBrowser can also be helpful for other uses. For example, you can connect FileBrowser to your computer, and then access any files you have on it on the go from your phone. You’ll want to check out this guide to set up FileBrowser with your computer.
If you have a home server where you have pictures and movies, you can likely connect FileBrowser to it and stream movies from it to your iPad or iPhone, and also view all the pictures on it. In fact, FileBrowser even has a built-in music player so you can stream music from your server.
For a person that needs to connect to a server or PC, FileBrowser is a must have. For me, being able to access websites I maintain on the go is really useful, as I can quickly fix something on my phone through FileBrowser. The ability to connect to my PC and access all my files is really useful to.
FileBrowser is £5.99 on the App Store.