Introducing Iruka: a modern file manager for macOS
Posted by dorien on Monday, 26 October 2026This one is a little different from what I usually post here. Most of my work is research in the Audio, Music, and AI Lab. But I've also recently built a piece of software of my own, that I to share: Iruka, a modern file manager for macOS.
Here's how it came about. We code a lot at the lab and we push our machines hard. Over a single day I might go from university forms and grant applications to student papers, then on to Python, JavaScript, LaTeX and Bash. The file manager is what I use to move between all of those jobs, and macOS Finder was holding me back more and more. I tried the alternatives, Path Finder and ForkLift, and neither did what I needed.
So I started building my own in the evenings and on weekends. What makes Iruka different is that its terminal stays in sync with the folder you're browsing. Whenever you open the terminal, it's already in the folder you're looking at. From there you can run Claude (or whichever AI assistant you like), a quick pdftk command, or a git commit. Git is also built into the interface, so you can see status, commit, pull and push without leaving the folder.
If that sounds useful, you can try it at iruka.sh.





























