File Manager Workspaces: Spaces, Pinned and Open Tabs

A file manager with workspaces lets you keep one set of folders per project and switch between sets, instead of piling every open folder into one tab bar. The idea comes in a few shapes: saved layouts (ForkLift, QSpace, Directory Opus, Fileside), saved tab sets (XYplorer, Total Commander), and the model the Arc browser made popular, where each project gets its own Space with pinned folders that stay and open tabs that clean themselves up. We build X-Filer around that last model, so this article explains how it works, what it fixes, and which other tools take a different route. Vendor details were checked in October 2026.

The tab-bar problem in Explorer and Finder

Both system file managers have tabs now. Finder has had them for years, and Microsoft brought tabs to File Explorer in a Windows 11 version 22H2 update in late 2022. Tabs help with three or four folders. They stop helping when your day looks like this:

a client project with a source folder, an exports folder and a shared cloud folder;
your own side project with a different three folders;
Downloads, Desktop and a scratch folder that you open all the time.

In a single tab bar, all of that lives in one row. Tab titles shrink to a few letters, you can't tell assets from assets, and closing the client's folders at the end of the day means hunting for them one by one. Neither Finder nor Explorer documents a way to save a set of tabs and reopen it later, so tomorrow you rebuild the same row from scratch.

The underlying problem isn't the number of tabs. It's that every project shares one flat list, and nothing distinguishes the folders you always need from the ones you opened once.

What Arc got right about tabs

The Arc browser from The Browser Company tackled the same problem for web pages, and its answer translates well to files. According to Arc's help center, "Each Space has its own Pinned section, Unpinned section, Theme, and Icon." Three ideas do the work:

Tabs live in a vertical sidebar, so titles stay readable no matter how many there are.
Spaces separate contexts. Work and personal tabs never share a list, and a color tells you which one you're in.
Pinned and unpinned tabs behave differently. Pinned tabs never auto-archive. Unpinned ones are archived after 12 hours of inactivity by default, and viewing a tab resets its timer.

The third idea is the clever one. Most clutter comes from tabs you opened for a minute and forgot. If those clean themselves up while the tabs you rely on stay put, the sidebar stays short without any effort.

Arc itself is no longer a growing product: in May 2025 The Browser Company wrote that it was no longer actively developing Arc's core experience and was focusing on its new browser, Dia, and Atlassian announced it was acquiring the company in September 2025. Arc still receives security updates. The tab model outlived the product's momentum, and it works just as well for folders.

Spaces: one context per project

In X-Filer, a Space is a separate working context with its own pinned folders, its own open tabs and its own accent color. The Space switcher sits at the bottom of the sidebar, and Spaces are saved across restarts.

What that looks like in practice:

A Client Space pins the project folder, the exports folder and the client's Google Drive folder.
A Personal Space pins Documents, Photos and a Yandex Disk folder.
A Study Space pins course materials.

Switching Spaces swaps the whole sidebar. The client's folders aren't hidden somewhere in a long row; they're simply not in your Personal Space. The accent color changes with the Space, so a glance tells you where you are before you delete something.

Cloud folders are first-class here. Google Drive (My Drive) and Yandex Disk open inside X-Filer without a sync client, so a Space can hold a local folder and a cloud folder side by side. If you're tired of sync clients filling your disk, we compare the options in how to access Google Drive without syncing.

Pinned vs. open tabs that expire

Each Space has two lists in the sidebar:

Pinned folders are permanent bookmarks for that Space. They stay until you unpin them.
Open tabs are the folders you're browsing right now, including ones you only needed for a minute.

Open tabs can clean themselves up. In Settings you choose the policy: close them after a number of hours of inactivity, close them when you quit the app, or never. Pinned folders are never touched.

Promoting a tab is one action: if an open tab turns out to be something you need every day, pin it from its context menu; a pinned folder you no longer need is unpinned the same way. Over a week, the pinned list settles into the handful of folders a project actually uses, and the open list stays short on its own.

This is the difference from saved layouts in other file managers. A saved layout is a snapshot you have to remember to update. Pinned and open tabs are maintained as you work.

Split view and the launcher

Two more pieces make Spaces practical for moving files around.

Split view puts two panes side by side, up to two at a time. Any pinned folder, open tab or drive in the sidebar can be opened in the second pane from its context menu, and you drag files between panes. The active pane is marked with the Space's accent color. A typical use: a cloud folder on the left, a local project folder on the right.

The launcher opens with Cmd+T on Mac or Ctrl+T on Windows. Type a few letters and it searches your pinned folders, open tabs and drives, or accepts a typed path. It's the quickest way to reach a folder without scrolling the sidebar.

The sidebar itself can collapse to a thin strip and reappear as an overlay when you hover over it, so it doesn't eat screen space on a small laptop.

Other tools with workspaces

X-Filer isn't the only file manager that thinks in workspaces. Here is how others approach it, from their own documentation:

Fileside is built around many panes in one window and lets you "create and save layouts of commonly needed locations for different projects or workflows." It runs on Mac (macOS 12+) and Windows 10+, with lifetime licenses; version 2.0.6 came out in August 2026. It's the closest in spirit to project workspaces.
ForkLift 4 (Mac) has Workspaces that "save different layouts with opened tabs and locations." See our Finder alternatives roundup for more on ForkLift.
QSpace (Mac) treats a workspace as a saved window: the multi-pane layout, sidebar and the folders open in each pane.
Directory Opus (Windows) has Layouts, saved sets of windows, and Tab Groups, sets of predefined tabs that open in one operation.
XYplorer (Windows) has Tabsets, saved sets of a pane's tabs, in its Pro edition.
Total Commander (Windows) can save the current tabs to a file and load them back.

What most of these share is the snapshot approach: you arrange folders, save the arrangement and load it later. That's great for fixed setups like a daily reporting routine. The Arc model is better when projects change every week, because it keeps itself tidy without explicit saving. Pick whichever matches how your work actually changes.

A note on platforms: Fileside and X-Filer are the two in this list that run on both Mac and Windows. If you switch between both systems, we cover that problem in cross-platform file managers compared.

Setting up your first Spaces

X-Filer is our app, and it's young: pre-1.0, free for local files, with no ads and no account. Here's a setup that takes five minutes:

Install X-Filer from the download page on macOS 12+ or Windows 10/11.
Create a Space per context. Use the + next to the Space switcher at the bottom of the sidebar. Start with two, such as Work and Personal; you can add more later. Give each its own color.
Pin the folders you open every day. Open a folder, then choose Pin from its tab's context menu. Three to five pinned folders per Space is a good start.
Connect your clouds and servers, if you use them. Add Google Drive or Yandex Disk from the sidebar's drives section and sign in through your browser; SFTP, WebDAV, S3 and SMB come from the same Add drive dialog. Pin the remote folders a project needs.
Choose a cleanup policy. In Settings, set open tabs to close after some hours of inactivity or on exit. If you're unsure, start with inactivity and adjust.
Learn one shortcut: Cmd+T or Ctrl+T for the launcher.

The honest limits, so you know what you're getting: X-Filer opens cloud drives inside the app rather than mounting them in Finder or Explorer, there's no offline access to cloud files, and OneDrive and Dropbox aren't supported yet (Google Drive means My Drive). The Windows build isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen asks you to click More info, then Run anyway.

FAQ

Does Windows 11 File Explorer have workspaces?

It has tabs, added in a Windows 11 version 22H2 update in 2022, but Microsoft doesn't document a way to save and restore a set of tabs. For workspaces you need a third-party file manager.

Can Finder save a set of tabs?

Apple's Finder documentation covers opening folders in tabs but not saving tab sets. Mac users who want workspaces usually turn to ForkLift, QSpace, Fileside or X-Filer.

What's the difference between a workspace and a saved layout?

A saved layout is a snapshot: windows, panes and folders as they were when you saved them. A workspace in the Arc sense is a living context: pinned folders you chose, open tabs that come and go, and cleanup that keeps it short.

Is there an Arc-style file manager?

X-Filer, our app, borrows Arc's model directly: a sidebar instead of a tab bar, Spaces with their own pinned folders, open tabs and colors, and open tabs that close themselves after inactivity.

Bottom line

Tab bars in Explorer and Finder break down once you juggle several projects, because everything shares one row and nothing is saved. Saved layouts in ForkLift, QSpace, Directory Opus, XYplorer and Fileside fix that with snapshots. The Arc approach fixes it with Spaces, pinned folders and open tabs that expire. If that model appeals to you, try X-Filer on Mac or Windows.