Settings

Unless otherwise stated, the settings apply to both browse views and search views.

Attributes to show

Select the attributes you want to see for files and folders.
- Date (Modification time)
- Permissions
- File size
- Folder size, cumulative
- Folder counts, cumulative

The cumulative attributes, folder size and folder counts, are only applicable in browse views. They make browsing more time consuming for folders with deep sub folder hierarchy.
With the "Cumulative folders limit" setting you can limit how many sub folders will be investigated.

The following attributes are always shown :
- Name of file or folder
- Parent path of the item. Only in search views.
- Indicator, "Hidden", for hidden item.

- Indicators for restricted items:
  - "No access"
  - "Not file/folder"
  - "Does not exist"
"No access" items could be system folders which contents we are not allowed to explore.
"Not file/folder" and "Does not exist" items could be vendor/device specific irregular file system objects, or regular files that are temporarily inaccessible.

"Limited access" indicates that LFE can not get a full listing of the contents of a folder, but show items which we specifically can confirm exists there.
"SAF" means that the file/folder is accessed via Storage Access Framework.

Default sorting

Choose the order in which the files and folders should be displayed in browse views and search views.
Sorting can be changed per view with the sorting button at the bottom right corner in browse and search views.

Show/hide certain items

Select whether you want to see these items or not:
- Hidden items, i.e items that are marked "Hidden" by the system.
- Restricted items

Note: This setting just affects what items will be shown in browse and search views. When folder sizes and folder counts are shown (by using cumulative attributes in lists, or when viewing folder properties), these numbers always include also hidden and restricted items.
Note: For SAF items the "hidden" and "restricted" flags are not fully applicable. LFE assumes all SAF items being not hidden and not restricted.

Partial file system

Typically the Partial file system settings should be used to exclude huge system folders, that otherwise would lower the performance when browsing and searching from the root directory.
Folders that are "no access" are not so useful to define here, since their contents can not be accessed (and slow things down) anyway.

First you can specify which root level folders (to exclude).

And then with the Action setting, you specify how to treat these folders:
- The app should not see these folders
- The app should only see these folders
- Do not use this setting. Use this if you temporarily want to see ALL folders.

Changes to these settings do not immediately affect existing views. The changes will apply as new views are created and old ones are refreshed.
The "Partial file system" setting does not effect SAF-links. If you use SAF-links, they are always shown at root level.

Various

Use device Back key as Up
Check this if you like to use the phone's Back key (or back gesture) to "step up" in the folder hierarchy in browse views.
To step up several levels at once - click on the desired folder directly in the clickable path.

Use app Back key as Up
Check this if you like to use the app's Back key (the back arrow in the action bar) to "step up" in the folder hierarchy in browse views.
To step up several levels at once - click on the desired folder directly in the clickable path.

Action when clicking file
Choose what, if any, action is desired when clicking a file directly in browse and search lists.

Time format
Choose desired format of files and folders date (modification time).

Folder color
Choose desired background color of folder items in lists.

File color
Choose desired background color of file items in lists.

Main Menu

Views

This opens a list of all views. Just select the view you want to see. The currently visible view is marked with a star.
The list also presents actions for creating and closing views.

"Create default browse views" will create views for a few "basic" paths. A view is only created if the corresponding path is not already used in an existing browse view.

"Create favourites browse views" will create a browse view for each favourite path you have set up (if the path is not already in use in an existing view).

Path

This is a way to quickly change the current folder of the visible view. The paths presented here are the current path of other views and paths of the favourite folders.

Settings

Opens the settings form.

New file

Creates a new empty file in the browse view's current folder.

New folder

Creates a new empty folder in the browse view's current folder.

With current folder

Opens the folder menu for the currently opened folder. Alternatively you can take a step back in the folder structure and there click on menu symbol for the folder.

Manage favourites

Here one can rename, delete and re-order items in the list of favourite folders.
The actual folders are not affected.

Browse LFE app folder

Convenience function for quickly get to browse the LFE app specific folder.
If there already is a browse view with this folder as the current folder, that view becomes the selected view. If not, a new view will be created, and selected.

Known issue:
This path is typically /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/tbmcmlxvi/lightfileexplorer/files
But on Android Q (10) devices /storage/emulated/0 is probably accessible only via SAF.
The location should still be functional, but traversing up along the path, will give some "no access" folders.
Update: From v1.30 this function tries to open the folder via SAF - then there should be no problem.
Update 2: In Android v 11 and higher, if using "All files access", this issue is gone.

Enable multi select

Enables/disables the multi select feature.
Good to have it disabled when not being used, so that the checkboxes do not take space in the file listings.

Show view buttons

Shows/hides the view buttons at the top of the screen.
Advantages with the view buttons is that you can switch current view with a single click, and you can do some actions on a view even if it is not the current one.
If view buttons are hidden, you can switch views with the "Views" menu option.
Obviously, if the view buttons are hidden, the view button menu is not available, but most of its actions can also be achieved via the main menu.

Dark mode

Shows the main screen with black background rather than white. Only available for LolliPop and higher.
The selected file and folder colors in settings, will become text colors rather than background colors of the file/folder list items.

Workspaces

A workspace is just a set of views.
If you have created browse and/or search views, and arranged them to your liking for a certain task, it can be a good idea to save this set of views as a workspace. Then you can quickly regain those views if you should want to do the same task again in the future.
The Add button saves the current views as a workspace.
To Open a workspace - click on on it in the list. If you want to keep any current views, first check the "Keep current views" checkbox.

Compare Folders

This function compares two file structures to see if they are equal or not.
If they are not equal, the first few detected differences are shown.
This comparison requires that all sub folders and files of the two structures are readable. So, system folders that have some inaccessible parts will not work in this comparison.

Only file contents are considered. File attributes, like modified time, are not considered.
If using shallow file comparison, files are considered equal if they have the same name and size.

Manage SAF links

Shows all SAF links, and their status, for example a link for an USB stick that has been ejected will have status "Not available".
New links can be created and existing ones deleted.
Also, see SAF links

Export/Import settings

The export function will create various files (lightfe_*.txt) that covers settings and other configurations of the app.
Note that if storing the files in LFE app folder, they will be deleted if the LFE app is uninstalled.

To import, go to the folder where you store the previously exported files, and choose import in the menu.
In the import dialog, select what you want to import. Use "Keep existing items" checkboxes to preserve any configuration items that has been created after the creation of the exported files.

Scroll to

For quick scrolling to top or bottom of list. Only available if there are at least 300 files or folders in the list.

Help

Launches the LFE's help file.

Help, About

Some info about the app.

Help, Show log

Shows a list covering the most recent file operations.
Could for example be useful if you become hesitant on where you copied something.
Green list entries are successful operations, whilst red indicate failed operations.
Each entry shows: timestamp and operation name; source path; destination path (if applicable); Error description (if failure).
Note that a "Move to" operation is logged as one copy operation and one delete operation.

Exit

Exits the app. Can be useful if setting "Use Back key as Up" is enabled.

View Button Menu

The view button menu is invoked by long clicking the concerned view button. Obviously, if you have chosen to hide the view buttons, the view button menu is not available, but most of its actions can also be achieved via the main menu.

Duplicate view

Creates a new view with same properties as the source view.

Use path in browse/search view

When in a search view, this action selects a browse view with the same current folder. When in a browse view, this action selects a search view with the same current folder.
If there is no such view, a new one will be created.

Close view

Closes the view.

Close other views

Closes all views except this view.

Change path

This is a way to quickly change the current path of a view. Also see Select folder

Add folder to favourites

Takes the current path of the view and stores it in the favourites list.

Save to file

Saves information about the view, including the entire list contents, to a text file. The file is stored in the LFE app folder.
This menu item is only enabled for the button of the currently selected view.
This feature could for example be used to compare search results from different times, if one wants to track changes in the file system for some reason.

Move left/right

Moves the button. Can be convenient to have views next to each other if switching frequently between them.

File/folder Menu

Open file

Opens a file for desired action. Either with default app by extension, or forced as text or image.
Which app opens is depending on which apps are installed on the device, and if they are associated with the file type.
If you have set a default app, but occasionally wants to use another app - try the "Open file, force choose dialog".

The LFE internal text file editor is intended for small unformatted Unicode text files.

The LFE internal image viewer has "prev" and "next" options to step through files in case the file location contain several image files.
Click on image to toggle fullscreen mode.

When opening a file, by clicking on it, you can, in "Settings -> Various -> Action when clicking file" influence what action will occur.

Browse in other view

Only for folders
Clicking on a folder in a browse view will of course open that folder in the view.
Use this option if you instead want to open it in a another browse view.
If there is an existing view with this folder as current folder, that view will be selected. Otherwise a new browse view will be created.

Browse containing folder

Only for files in search view
Opens the parent folder of the file in a browse view.
If there is an existing view with this folder as current folder, that view will be selected. Otherwise a new browse view will be created.

Add folder to favourites

Only for folders
Stores the path of the folder in the favourites list.

Duplicate

Makes a copy of a file in the same folder. The name of the new file will end with "_copy".

Copy to

Copies one or more files, or one entire folder, to another location. See Select folder dialog.

Move to

Moves one or more files to another location. See Select folder dialog.

Rename

Renames a file or folder.

Delete

Deletes one or more files, or one entire folder.
Deletions can not be undone. LFE does not have a recycle bin.

Properties

Shows details of the file or folder.

Compress - zip

Compresses one or more files, or one entire folder, into a zip archive.
When zipping files, rather than an entire folder, the paths of the files are not retained in the zip archive.

Compress - gzip

Compresses one file into a gzip file.

Extract to

Extract files from a zip or gz file.
You will be asked for a target folder, where the extracted file(s) will be created. See Select folder dialog.
In case of gz file, the name of the resulting file will always be set to the same name as the gz file, but without the ending ".gz".
In any case, the operation will be refused if resulting filename(s) already exists in the selected target folder.

Inspect zip file

Shows path and size of included files without doing any extracting.

Copy name to clipboard

Copies the name of the file or folder to the clipboard.

Copy path to clipboard

Copies the full path of the file or folder to the clipboard.

Get checksum

Calculates and shows checksums of the file.

Share a file.

Compare folder

The selected folder will be used as "Folder 1" in the Compare folders function.
See main menu, Compare folders

Device file manager

Opens the current folder in the device file manager.
This menu option is only available for Android 11 and higher. For some devices LFE might not be able to open this file manager. For some devices, LFE will be able to open "Files" rather than "Files by Google".

Select files

If multi select is enabled, here are some options to quickly select multiple files.

Go to top/bottom

For quick navigation in long file lists.

Search Criteria

In the Search Criteria form, you first specify the folder to search in. "Include sub folders" makes the search proceed (recursively) also in sub folders.
The folder can be changed with the "Up" and "Path" (Select folder) buttons.

Then select type of items to search for (files and/or folders). If searching for folders, use the "Search within found folders" checkbox, to tell if you want the search to continue also with the sub folders of found folders. If, for example, you search for writable folders, the result might be cleaner if un-checking this checkbox, since permission attributes often are inherited by the sub folders.

Choose how the found items should be sorted. Can also be changed via the sorting button (in the bottom right corner) in the search result view.

Then the actual criteria follows. Each criterion has a "Use" checkbox with which it is enabled/disabled.
For a file (or folder) to meet the full criteria, all used parts must be fulfilled, i.e imagine "and" between them.

Name

Enter whole or part of the file/folder name. Wildcards are not supported. The search is case insensitive.
Select how the entered name should be matched against the names of files and folders:
(Not) Equals/Contains/Begins/Ends
Example:
Ends .txt Items whose name ends with ".txt"
It is possible to use two criteria on the file/folder Name.

Date (Modification time)

Enter number of time units and unit.
Example:
Newer than 2 hours Items that been modified two hours ago or more recent.
Note: Items lacking a real modified time have their time shown as "Date unknown". Such items are considered older than all other items. (January 1st 1970 to be exact).

File size

Enter number of bytes, and if it regards minimum or maximum size. This criterion is only applied on files - not folders.
Example:
>= 500 Files that are of 500 bytes size or larger.

Permission

Select whether a certain permission must be set, or must not be set. Note: For SAF items the "executable" permission is not fully applicable. LFE assumes all SAF items being executable.

Hidden flag

Select whether the item must be marked as hidden or must not be marked as hidden.
If this criterion is used and hidden items should be searched for, hidden items can appear in the search result even if the general app setting "Show hidden items" indicates that such items should not be shown.
Note: For SAF items the "hidden" flag is not fully applicable. LFE assumes all SAF items being not hidden.

Restricted

Select whether the item must be restricted or must not be restricted.
If this criterion is used and restricted items should be searched for, restricted items can appear in the search result even if the general app setting "Show restricted items" indicates that such items should not be shown.
Note: For SAF items the "restricted" flag is not fully applicable. LFE assumes all SAF items being not restricted.

The Search criteria Favourites menu option lets you name and store the current selection, so you don't have to re-enter criteria you often use.

Finally, start the search by hitting the Search menu option, or return to the actual search view and hit the Search button there.

SAF links

Update for Android 11 and higher: when using the "All files access" permission, you should not use SAF.
The device's main storage and removable sd cards and otg usb sticks should be directly accessible at their correct locations in the file system:
/storage/emulated/0 and
/storage/nnnn-nnnn respectively. Exact paths may vary.
So if using Android 11 or higher - disregard the entire "SAF links" chapter.

Update for Android 10 : Below only sdcards and usb sticks are mentioned. But In Android 10, LFE will by default have no access to the internal storage (sometimes called main storage) of the device. To fix that, add a SAF link as described below, also for the "Internal storage". Make sure "Show internal storage" are enabled in the system dialog. Finally hit "Allow <device name and model>.
Select a sub folder if you want LFE to have access only to part of the storage.
The resulting location in LFE's file structure will probably be "/primary".

SAF is only available for LOLLIPOP (5.1) and higher.

Storage Access Framework (SAF) is (among other things) a new api for accessing removable sd cards and usb sticks.
If you can not find a removable sd card or usb stick in LFE's file hierarchy (look in /extSdcard, /storage), or if you find it but it is read-only - Then you can try create a SAF link for it.

1. In main menu, select "Manage SAF links", and hit the "Add" button.
First, a message from LFE might show up - click Ok.

2. Now a system dialog will be opened where you should browse to the desired sdcard/usb stick. Then close the dialog with the "Select" (or "Allow") button.
Doing this gives LFE read and write access to the contents of the sdcard/usb stick. If you want LFE just to have access to a part of it - select desired sub folder instead of the root folder of the sdcard/usb stick.

3, Now a new SAF link entry can be seen in the "Manage SAF links" view. There you can see the sdcards location in the LFE file hierarchy.

4. When you now exit "Manage SAF links" you can find the sdcard/usb stick, in a folder at root level, like "/A123-4567".
Now you can browse it and pretty much use it as any other part of the file structure.

If you eject the sdcard/usb stick, and later insert it again later, it should be accessible in LFE automatically. If not - try to delete the SAF link in "Manage SAF links" and create it again.

Notice: Before physically removing an usb stick (or sd card) from the device, you must eject/unmount it first, probably via a built-in storage manager or similar, in your device. Otherwise the memory could become corrupted.

Some issues regarding LFE "SAF links":
- LFE can not verify that what you select in the system dialog actually corresponds to a sdcard or usb stick, so just don't select anything else.
- SAF link's locations in the LFE file hierarchy, i.e at the root level, is just where I have chosen to show them. This might not be where the OS file system locates sdcards/usb sticks.
- Hidden and "restricted" file system objects do not seem to show up in SAF listings. So if your device/Android version is such that it can show the contents of your sdcard in the regular file structure, but you also create a SAF link for it, and compare the two structures, there may be a few more files in the regular one.
- SAF links are not handled in the "Partial file system" setting. If they are available, the are always shown.
- LFE does currently not automatically detect when you insert/eject (or rather mount/unmount) usb sticks and sd cards. But just refresh a browse view at "/", or open and close "Manage SAF links" in the main menu. Then it refreshes which links are available and not.

Usage Tips

Performance tips

- Having the the cumulative attributes, "Folder size" and "Folder counts", enabled slows down browsing.
- If doing searches from the root (/) level, it is of course good to avoid big system folders. See Settings, Partial file system.
Also note that a folder /sdcard often is a link for "Internal storage", typically /storage/emulated/0 or (if SAF) /primary.
- If using SAF links, delete links in "Manage SAF links", that you plan not to use again.

Abort processing

Whenever a progress dialog is shown, it can be aborted by hitting the phone's back key.
If information retrieving has been aborted this way, or by the processing hitting some max limit, a "Processing aborted" text will be shown in the status bar and/or in the displayed data. This to inform that the data shown might be incomplete.

Refreshing view contents

When showing a view (by clicking on its view button or select it under "Views"), the view contents (the list of files and folders) normally is not refreshed. I.e its contents is the same as when it was last shown.
Exception: Browse views that may have been affected by file operations done by LFE, will automatically be refreshed.
To manually refresh a browse view, click on the last underlined part of the path. To manually refresh a search view - perform the search again.
The status bar, at the bottom of the screen, always shows the time (hh:mm:ss) of when the data was refreshed.

Select folder

Sometimes a "Select folder" dialog is used. For example, in a "copy to" file action, you will be prompted to select destination folder.
The folders provided in this dialog are the current folders of all views, and the folders stored in the favourites list.
If desired folder is not provided here, you can choose the "Other..." option, to open another dialog where one can navigate and select any folder.

Favourites

You can store the paths to folders that you frequently use, as favourites, by invoking the folder menu on a folder and select "Add path to favourites".
To edit the favourites list, use the "Manage favourites" menu option in the main menu.

Another type of favourites are search criteria favourites. These prevent having to re-enter criteria you often use. These favourites are accessed from the "Favourites" menu option in the search criteria form.

Multi select

When this feature is enabled, checkboxes will occur in the browse and search views. Only for files - not folders.
To perform an operation on multiple files, first select (check) desired files, and then invoke the file action menu from one of them.
If you invoke the file action menu from a non checked file, the menu actions will just cover that file, regardless of any checked files.
File operations that can be performed on multiple files: Copy to, Move to, Delete, Compress zip
Other operations will just cover one file - the one from which the menu was invoked.

USB stick not showing up

If an on-the-go usb stick has been inserted but is not showing up in the LFE file structure.

Android 11 and higher:
If the browse view has /storage as current path, it just needs to be refreshed - tap the "storage" part of the clickable path.
Now /storage/nnnn-nnnn should show up.
Note that it might take a few seconds for the device to mount the usb stick.

Android 10 and lower:
This is probably an access issue, and one might have to use SAF as workaround.
See SAF links

DCIM folders

LFE treats all files as just pure file system objects, without any special treatment for any type of files. This could, on some devices, cause annoyances when deleting or renaming certain media/consumer files.
For example, when deleting/renaming camera image files in DCIM folders, corresponding changes might not show up (at least not immediately) in the device's Photos/Gallery app.
If this is a problem: To delete/rename files in DCIM folders, you might be better of using the device's built in file manager or the dedicated Photos app.

Introduction

Settings

Attributes to show

Default sorting

Show/hide certain items

Partial file system

Various

Main Menu

Views

Path

Settings

New file

New folder

With current folder

Manage favourites

Browse LFE app folder

Enable multi select

Show view buttons

Dark mode

Workspaces

Compare Folders

Manage SAF links

Export/Import settings

Scroll to

Help

Help, About

Help, Show log

Exit

View Button Menu

Duplicate view

Use path in browse/search view

Close view

Close other views

Change path

Add folder to favourites

Save to file

Move left/right

File/folder Menu

Open file

Browse in other view

Browse containing folder

Add folder to favourites

Duplicate

Copy to

Move to

Rename

Delete

Properties

Compress - zip

Compress - gzip

Extract to

Inspect zip file

Copy name to clipboard

Copy path to clipboard

Get checksum

Share

Compare folder

Device file manager

Select files

Go to top/bottom

Search Criteria

Name

Date (Modification time)

File size

Permission

Hidden flag

Restricted

SAF links

Usage Tips

Performance tips

Abort processing

Refreshing view contents

Select folder

Favourites

Multi select

USB stick not showing up

DCIM folders

File access issues

KitKat

Nougat