Effective management is essential for a well oiled PC and an organised working environment. However, doing so with Windows Explorer can be a rather limiting experience so its good to know there are several tools out there to help make your job easier.
One of the biggest frustrations I find with Windows Explorer is when it comes to renaming folders and files. Sometimes, such as when transferring photos from a digital camera, I just want to rename a whole batch of them and Explorer provides only very limited options for batch renaming. Flexible Renamer deals with this by allowing you to select batches of folders and files at once. No more painstaking renaming of files one-by-one – this program is essential if you are constantly having to deal with file names or extension changes.
Another issue I frequently have problems with is unzipping large number of ZIP or RAR archives. If you download a lot of files, many are archived in these formats and it’s a pain to go through them all individually. ExtractNow is a really useful tool which allows you to drag and drop several ZIP and RAR archives into its converter which unzips them simultaneously. You can even specify separate destinations for each archive if you don’t want them saved in the same place. If you want to do the reverse, and ZIP multiple sets of files, MyZippa can do that for you too.
If you share a computer with other users, you might be concerned about them accessing your folders. With Folder Lock, you can make sure this doesn’t happen by password-protecting, locking, hiding and encrypting any number of files and folders. It even works with files transferred onto external hardrives or USB devices. Folder Lock is also a secure way to delete files due to the shredding function which means that your data will be irretrievable by a third party.
Finally, if you’re bored of Window’s drab yellow folders, you can have a bit of fun with Rainbow Folders. This program allows you to change folder colours to just about anything you want. Even if not for aesthetic reasons, doing this can make your life easier by distinguishing the importance of folders and preventing confusion between those with a similar name.
