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Default Folder X

Rebuilds the macOS Open and Save dialogs around your folders

Price: $39.95 once

Paid upgradesMajor versions cost again

Buy direct

Price read on stclairsoft.com, the page Buy direct opens.

The catch

Major versions are a paid upgrade, $9.95 to $19.95, roughly every five to seven years

The full picture

St. Clair charges for major releases instead of shipping them free, but states plainly that an upgrade is "a one-time purchase, NOT a subscription" and entitles you to free updates until the next major release, typically five to seven years away. To hook into system dialogs it needs Accessibility and Automation permissions, which macOS will ask you to grant by hand. It also occasionally needs a point release to catch up with a new macOS version, so expect a short wait after each September. The site does not say how many Macs one single-user licence covers.

Seats
No Mac count statedLicensed per user rather than per machine: St. Clair allows use on every Mac you are the sole user of, so no seat count applies.
Developer account
None needed

What it looks like

Default Folder X: A macOS Open dialog with Default Folder X wrapped around it: the app's icon toolbar down the right edge (Utility, Computer, Favorite, Recent Folder, Recent File, Finder Window menus) and the Drag Zone of folder/file icons down the left edge, each labelled with a white callout. 1325x554.
A macOS Open dialog with Default Folder X wrapped around it. Vendor site (stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/)
Default Folder X: The Default Folder X settings window in dark mode, 'Folders' tab selected, showing the Default Folders table mapping folders to applications (Messages, Microsoft Excel, Safari, Numbers, Contacts, Vivaldi) with Extension and When columns, plus the General/Folders/Menus/Recent/Open & Save/Shortcuts/Options toolbar.
The Default Folder X settings window in dark mode, 'Folders' tab selected, showing the Default Folders table mapping folders to applications (Messages, Microsoft Excel, Safari, Numbers, Contacts, Vivaldi) with Extension and When columns, plus the General/Folders/Menus/Recent/Open & Save/Shortcuts/Options toolbar. Vendor site (stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/)

Images belong to their developers.

What you’re buying

This is a small idea that compounds. macOS gives you one Save dialog with a sidebar Apple chose; Default Folder X gives you the folders you personally use, a list of the last places you saved anything, and a one-key jump to whatever folder is open in Finder behind the dialog. If your day involves exporting, attaching and filing documents, you stop navigating and start picking.

The other half of it is per-app defaults. Screenshots always land in one folder, invoices in another, and the dialog for each app opens where that app's files actually live. You can also rename or delete a file, or set a Finder tag, without abandoning the save you were in the middle of.

The licence is one of the more honest ones on this site. You pay $39.95, you get free updates until the next major version, and major versions come every five to seven years at $9.95 to $19.95 depending on how old your licence is. Over a decade that is under $60.

It is worth being clear about who this is not for: if you save files into two folders and never think about it, there is nothing here to fix. The app earns its money on volume and variety of destinations.

What owners report

Points that recur across the discussions below. A report of what users say, not our verdict: we don’t review software.

Praised

  • Finder-click is the feature owners name first: pointing at a Finder window behind the dialog to send the save there, and the thing they say they miss most on a Mac without it.
  • The developer's responsiveness recurs in every thread, with replies and compatibility builds within a day of a report, including inside the threads themselves.
  • Long-term owners, several counting in decades, say a Mac without it feels measurably slower to work on, and that is how they justify buying each upgrade.

Criticised

  • Owners report the dialog overlay appearing late, lagging or failing outright after a macOS upgrade; the developer traces it to the system privacy database and publishes a reset procedure.
  • Several call the price steep for what it does and advise waiting for one of the software bundles it periodically turns up in.

Details

The price in full

$39.95 for a single-user licence, or $34.95 each when buying two or more. Free 30-day trial. Major upgrades are date-based and mild: free if you bought on or after 1 March 2023, $9.95 if you bought between 1 September 2022 and that date, and $19.95 for anything older.

The Default Folder X page at stclairsoft.com
The developer’s own page. stclairsoft.com, captured 22 Sep 2026
Free trial
Yes
Works offline
Yes
Apple Silicon
Native
On Setapp
No
Minimum macOS
not stated
Developer
St. Clair Software

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