Fileside alternative: Peekaboo vs Fileside
By Vishva Variya · Updated
Fileside is built around a good idea: each project gets its own grid of folder panes, saved and reopened in one click, with thumbnails, in-pane previews and undo for both file moves and layout changes. One lifetime licence covers your Macs and PCs. Peekaboo starts from the other end. Rather than keeping the right folders open, it assumes you’ve forgotten where something went and lets you ask for it.
Looking for Fileside itself? It’s at www.fileside.app.
- Fileside price
- Not listed, see www.fileside.app
- Fileside requires
- macOS 12 or later
- Peekaboo
- $24.99 one-time, 14-day trial, macOS 14+
Fileside figures from fileside.app, /download and /buy, verified 2026-11-02 (price not shown).
Why pick Peekaboo over Fileside?
Search that crosses projects
Fileside searches a folder you choose, breadth first. Peekaboo searches names, tags, contents and the words in images across your Mac from one box, or from any app with Quick Search (⌥Space).
Undo, applied to cleanup
Both apps take undo seriously. Fileside reverses moves and layout edits; Peekaboo records each cleanup as a session and restores all of it in one click.
Downloads sorted by source
Downloaded From groups files by where they came from (Gmail, Slack, ChatGPT, GitHub or any site), using macOS’s own “Where from” data.
Peekaboo vs Fileside, job by job
| Job | Fileside | Peekaboo |
|---|---|---|
| Saved layouts per project | Core feature: tiled panes reopened in one click | Not offered; pinned folders and live saved searches in the sidebar |
| Previews | Thumbnail grid, Space to preview in a pane or full screen | Card grid with a size slider, Quick Look, Inspector with EXIF and duration |
| Search | Recursive search of a chosen folder | Plain English across the Mac, plus Search Everywhere for files Spotlight skips |
| Windows PCs | Yes, same licence | No. Mac only, macOS 14 or later |
| Price | Not shown on fileside.app when checked; 30-day trial | One-time, 14-day free trial |
The honest verdict
If you return to the same handful of folders for each client or project, or you work on Windows too, Fileside fits better, and it runs on macOS 12. Peekaboo has no panes to arrange. It’s the better pick when you can’t remember which project a file belongs to, or when the disk needs clearing.
Fileside vs Peekaboo: questions
Does Fileside work on Windows?
- Yes. Its buy page describes a personal lifetime licence for any number of your own computers, Mac and Windows alike.
How long is Fileside’s free trial?
- 30 days, fully functional, according to its download page on November 2, 2026. The site didn’t show a price when we checked; see fileside.app/buy.
Can Peekaboo save a set of folders like a Fileside layout?
- Not as panes. You can pin the folders you use most to the sidebar, and save any search there so it always shows what matches right now.