for FREE

Sooner or later your computer gets filled with an abundance of different files. Managing them becomes a little difficult and time-consuming, especially when organizing libraries. Although Windows comes equipped with a file explorer you can do just about anything with, dedicated applications aim to make it easier, which is also the case with Pneumatic Tubes File Router.

As the name suggests, the application is based around the tube mail system that was once commonly used to distribute messages and packages. With this in mind, you get to manage a handful of destinations and make file transfer almost instant.

Moreover, the application also aims to simplify file management to a single window, which you customize with directories that are frequently used and the operations to perform. There are also two presets available with personal folders, such as media libraries, fonts or your desktop, each with a hotkey attributed.

Items you get to work with are conveniently called tubes, which you can edit or define from scratch. You can pick an image or icon to represent it, specify a custom name, define the target directory, as well as link it to a button on your keyboard.

Although the idea behind the concept is pretty neat, the overall implementation of features is rather poor. This is because an abundance of accessibility options are crossed out from the possibilities list, such as the simple task of opening the target directory.

Files inside a tube are automatically fetched, but no option to get at least a summary. Dragging additional files over a specific tube copies them to the corresponding folder, again without any notifications.

Amongst others, a vital counterpart is the conveyor belt feature, which represents the method to move files around. Sadly, you need to use a file browser to specify the target directory of the conveyor each time, without the possibility to select any tube you have created.

With files aligned on the conveyor belt, pressing the corresponding hotkey sends the highlighted file to the target directory. There's no possibility to quickly send the whole content, which becomes frustrating when managing a lot of files.

As mentioned above, the application comes equipped with a few preset locations you can either disregard or use to your advantage. You can create completely new layouts, with custom directories from any location on your computer or even removable storage devices, but there's no options to save layouts, and hotkeys are limited to a single button, which considerably reduces practicality.

Pneumatic Tubes File Router is a rather poor choice when it comes to file managers, especially due to the low amount of flexibility offered by the set of features it comes equipped with. Management is done only one way, one file at a time, while the lack of support for hotkey combinations or multiple layouts make overall practicality highly questionable.