File View for Visual Studio

Download this extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace or get the latest CI build from Open VSIX Gallery.

Your project is more than the files in your solution. READMEs, docs, scripts, CI workflows, Dockerfiles, config - they all live in your repo, and none of them show up in Solution Explorer.

File View puts the whole thing one click away, without leaving Visual Studio and without alt-tabbing to File Explorer.

Stop alt-tabbing to File Explorer

Every file in your repository is right there in a familiar tree. Open a .yaml workflow, tweak a build script, or read the README without switching apps or hunting for the folder on disk.

It finds the right starting point automatically: your Git repository root when you have one, the solution folder when you don't. So you see the project the way it actually exists on disk - not a filtered view of it.

See your docs next to your code

Documentation usually lives outside the solution, which means it's out of sight and quickly out of date. Add your docs folder as a second root and it sits right next to your code, so updating the docs becomes part of the change instead of a separate errand.

Work across multiple repos at once

Microservices, a shared library, a separate front end - real work often spans repositories. Add each one as its own root folder and browse them side by side in a single tree.

No more juggling Visual Studio windows just to copy a config file from one repo to another, or to check how the other service handles the same problem.

Your extra folders are remembered per repository in a small .folders.json file at the root, so the layout is there again next time - and you can commit it so your whole team gets the same view.

Find any file fast

Type in the search box and the tree filters as you go, matching folders expand automatically. It's the quickest way to answer "where does that file live again?" for the files Solution Explorer never showed you.

Plain text matches anywhere in a file or folder name. Add a wildcard and the query becomes a glob instead:

* matches any characters, ? matches exactly one, and ** crosses folder boundaries. Queries with a / or \ are matched against the path relative to the root, and a glob has to match the whole name. Match case in the search options applies to wildcards too.

Search runs in the background and skips the folders you never want to dig through anyway - node_modules, bin, obj, packages, and the .git directory - so it stays instant even on a large repository. Clearing the search puts the tree back the way you had it.

Do the obvious things with a right-click

Open a file in the editor, reveal it in File Explorer, open it in VS Code, copy its full or relative path, or delete it - safely, to the Recycle Bin, so nothing is lost to a misclick.

Create, rename, and move files

File View is not read-only. Right-click any folder to add a New File or New Folder and type the name straight in the tree, the way you would in File Explorer. Rename works the same way, and pressing F2 starts it without touching the mouse.

Cut, Copy, and Paste use the normal Windows clipboard, so you can copy a file here and paste it into File Explorer - or the other way round. Renaming or deleting a file that is open in the editor closes the stale editor first, and reopens the file under its new name.

Work on more than one file at a time

Hold Ctrl to add individual files to the selection, or Shift to pick a whole range. Everything then applies to all of them at once: open them, cut or copy them, drag them into another folder, or send them to the Recycle Bin behind a single confirmation. Copy Path gives you one path per line, ready to paste into a script.

Move files without ceremony

Drag files between folders to reorganize your repo. Drag them out to File Explorer, or drop files in from File Explorer or Solution Explorer. Select several first and they all move together. Hold Ctrl to copy instead of move.

See what changed at a glance

When the folder lives in a Git repository, the tree shows the same status glyphs as Solution Explorer - a padlock for tracked files that match HEAD, a plus for new ones, a checkmark for edited ones, and a conflict badge during a merge. Names are colour coded to match: green for new and untracked, amber for edited, red for conflicts. Folders inherit the strongest state of anything inside them, so you can spot the changed corner of the tree without expanding it. Ignored files stay dimmed and carry no glyph. Everything refreshes when files change on disk or you save a document, and folders outside a repository are left alone.

Always current, always at home

The tree keeps itself in sync when files change on disk, whether the change came from a build, a Git checkout, or another tool. And it matches your Visual Studio theme - Light, Dark, or Blue - so it looks like it shipped with the IDE.

Getting started

1. Install the extension and restart Visual Studio.
2. Open your solution.
3. Choose View > File View.

That's it. Click Add Folder in the toolbar whenever you want another root in the tree, Refresh to reload from disk, and Collapse All to collapse every expanded folder.

Get involved

Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue or pull request on the GitHub repo.