Aurora Explorer is a Tauri v2 + Svelte 5 + Rust file explorer styled with Aurora Core. It started life as a C#/WPF app on Windows and got rewritten into a cross-platform native app when I decided I wanted the same experience on macOS.
Why it exists
Finder and File Explorer both make me unhappy for different reasons. I wanted tabbed browsing with real split panes, an integrated terminal per tab, live git status in the file list, and instant full-text search — all in the same aesthetic as the rest of my tools.
Highlights
- Tabbed browsing with independent history per tab and a rich tab context menu (duplicate, reopen closed, copy path, close others).
- Recursive split panes with draggable dividers.
- Tantivy-powered full-text search with background reindexing.
- Integrated xterm.js terminal backed by portable-pty per tab.
- File preview pane with text, markdown, image, and binary detection.
- Drag-and-drop between directories, Ctrl/Cmd to copy instead of move.
- Filesystem watcher for live change notifications.
- Safe-by-default delete (sends to Trash / Recycle Bin).
Technical approach
Rust handles filesystem, search index, git status, and PTY. Svelte 5 runes model the tab/pane tree as a single reactive structure so split-pane composition is just recursion. Session persistence keeps tabs and sidebar state between launches. Most IPC traffic is scoped to per-tab contexts to keep large workspaces responsive.
