FileHasher for Windows 0.5.0 adds a Subfolders control, so a folder scan can cover everything underneath, just the folder you picked, or a set number of levels down. It also starts remembering the settings you use on every run, while deliberately forgetting the ones that write files.
Choose how deep a scan goes
Until now, pointing FileHasher at a folder meant hashing everything beneath it, however deep that went. That is still what happens by default, so nothing changes unless you ask it to. But a release folder with a dozen build directories under it, or a backup drive with years of history, is not always what you meant to hash.
The Target group now has a Subfolders setting with three choices: All subfolders, which is the default and the old behaviour; This folder only, which ignores subdirectories entirely; and Limit depth to N levels deep, which descends as far as you say and no further.
Verify Sidecars uses the same setting as Run, which matters more than it sounds. If a verification pass looked less deep than the run that wrote the sidecars, it would report files as having no sidecar when the truth is that it never looked at them. Tying both walks to one setting means the two can never disagree about which files are in scope.
It remembers how you work, but not what you hashed
FileHasher now remembers your hash algorithm and the Include file metadata option between runs, in a small settings file under your own user profile. If you always work in SHA512, it will be waiting for you in SHA512.
What it deliberately does not remember is just as considered. The two options that cause the app to write something, sidecar hash files and CSV export, always start switched off, so a run only ever creates files because you ticked the box in that session. The target path is not restored either: reopening on last week’s folder invites a run against the wrong thing. The rule, if you want it in one line, is that a setting describing how you work is remembered, and a setting describing what you were working on is not.
Browse opens where you are already pointing
The Browse buttons used to open wherever Windows last left the file picker, which was often some other application’s business entirely. They now open at the path already in the box next to them: the folder you typed, or the folder containing the file you selected, with that file highlighted. The CSV picker keeps the filename you chose instead of replacing it with a fresh timestamp. If the remembered path has since been deleted or lives on a drive that is no longer attached, it quietly falls back to the deepest folder that still exists.
One more scaling fix
0.4.0 made the controls scale properly at high display scaling. One case survived: at 200% scaling the window itself wanted to be about 1605 pixels tall, which is taller than a 2560×1600 display, so Windows pinned it to the top and the bottom edge fell off the screen. The window now measures the available space before it opens and never exceeds it. Checked again at 100%, 150%, 175% and 200%; the smaller three are pixel-identical to before, which is how I know the change does nothing when the window already fits.
Getting it
FileHasher is free and MIT-licensed. The FileHasher page has the full feature list, the support page covers both the Windows and macOS versions, and the source, changelog and signed downloads are on GitHub. The previous release, 0.4.0, brought the app to the Microsoft Store, Chocolatey and Scoop.
As always, every channel delivers the identical build, code-signed by FSP Productions, LLC, with a .sha256 file published next to every download. If something misbehaves, the help window’s Support topic reaches me with your version number already attached.