One portable Windows exe for managing a computer and everything on it. Files, shells, text editing, storage and system admin share one window and one set of keys.
6D2DA17BA9962846BA9638003F25E263
Install or run portable. Free, open source, GPLv3.
No agent, no account, no subscription.
No telemetry is sent and no ads... ever.
By a technician, for power users
Created during everyday systems administration work at a large MSP, where the same loop ran all day: find the file, open a terminal in that folder, edit something. Three applications, three tab strips, and a lot of alt-tabbing between them to do one job.
It was built to collapse that loop into one window: find what you need, drop into a shell already in the right folder, edit the file, close the ticket, move on.
Read the story behind it on the About page.
Built from scratch
C# / WPF. Requires .NET Framework 4.8 (x64). The app's other dependencies are packaged in one executable.
The Technical page breaks down how it works, and Help covers every key and gesture.
Fully featured
- Browse - list, icon and details views
- Search - names or contents, with no index
- Terminal: PowerShell, CMD, WSL and custom profiles
- Editor - F7, with syntax highlighting
- Files - copy, move, rename, delete
- Tabs - folders, searches, shells, files
- Export - HTML report or CSV
- Processes - F9, with services and live CPU/RAM
- Registry - Ctrl+F11, lazy-loaded tree with search
- Storage - F4, a treemap of where the space went
- Themes: 13 themes, 8 accents on four themes (41 looks)
What it does
Filename search
Wildcard patterns like *.log or report_*.xlsx matched against every filename in the tree. Results stream in real time with no pre-indexing.
Content search
Search inside text files with streamed reading and bounded matching-line previews, without loading whole files at once.
Terminal in a tab
PowerShell, CMD, WSL and custom commands share one tab strip. Save terminal profiles, choose a default shell, and browse a terminal's current folder.
Editor in a tab
Open any file with F7. Syntax highlighting, line numbers, find and go to line, with word wrap on by default. Your encoding and line endings are preserved exactly, never invented.
Search within results
Pipe one search's results into a new tab and search inside just those files. Chain as deep as you like; each pass only touches the survivors of the last.
Two panes
F10 splits the window side by side or stacked, each pane with its own tabs. Drag files from one to the other, or keep a search on the left and a shell on the right.
Storage analyzer
F4 draws a treemap of any folder or drive: one rectangle per file, sized by how much space it takes. Zoom into a folder, filter by depth or minimum size, and send what you find to the Recycle Bin.
Processes & services
F9 opens a live CPU, memory and owner grid you can filter by name, path or user. End or restart a process, or start, stop and restart a service, each behind a confirm dialog.
Performance monitor
F11 opens a live hardware dashboard: a summary strip, large CPU and RAM panels, a row for every disk and network adapter, and a card per GPU. Every graph keeps a minute of history, and the CPU panel shows a load square for each logical processor.
Registry Editor
Ctrl+F11 opens a full tree over all five hives with type-aware value editing, create/rename/delete for keys and values, and Ctrl+F to search loaded names.
Event Viewer
Ctrl+F12 opens the Application, System and Security logs with level and text filtering, full record detail with a raw XML view, and paging through the filtered results.
Real file operations
Copy, move, rename, new folder, and delete to the Recycle Bin or permanently. Copy and move show real progress and stop to ask on a collision, with both files' size and date in front of you.
Multiple terms
Run several filename and content searches in a single pass. Each term is tracked independently with its own match count, so you can see which patterns hit.
Include / exclude filters
Semicolon-separated patterns narrow or limit the scope by extension or directory segment, for example *.txt;*.log or node_modules.
Sort & refine
Sort results by name, location, size, type, or modified or created date, and press Ctrl+F to filter the list live. Dropdown filters narrow by extension, date, or size.
Tabs
Each tab is its own search, folder, terminal or open file, with its own history and results. Drag tabs to reorder, and optionally restore your open tabs on the next launch.
Live folder browsing
List, icon and details views, with a folder tree, an address bar, and back / forward / up on Explorer's own keys. A browsed folder tracks the disk, so a file deleted in another window disappears here too. Give files or folders nicknames from their context menu without renaming them on disk.
HTML & CSV export
Export results as a self-contained HTML report with matched lines and a built-in theme switcher, or as CSV for spreadsheets. Opens anywhere, no dependencies.
Keyboard driven
Explorer's conventions where they exist, and single keys rather than chords where they do not. F1 shows every gesture as a list or on a visual keyboard you can hold Ctrl over.
Install or run portable
Run the .exe from anywhere and a PORTABLE badge appears in the title bar. Click it to install: for just your account, which needs no admin rights, or for every user on the PC, which asks for permission once and puts KillerShell in Program Files with a Start Menu and Add/Remove Programs entry for everybody. Requires .NET Framework 4.8 (x64). The app's other dependencies are packaged in one executable.
Private by design
App data is processed locally, with no telemetry or automatic uploads. Update checks, downloads and network features you choose to use make external connections.
Themes & accents
13 themes, 41 looks: Dark, Light, Black and 98SE each have 8 accent colors. The other 9 have fixed palettes. Switch live without restarting. The theme menu can turn Film Grain on or off.
Twenty languages
The interface is localized in twenty languages (English, Spanish, German, French, Hungarian, Italian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Polish, Czech, Japanese, Chinese Traditional and Simplified, Bengali, Russian, Kazakh, Ukrainian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Brazilian Portuguese and Slovenian), switchable live from the toolbar.