A fair number of people who look at Pathly are already Raycast users. Their question is reasonable: "Raycast can copy file paths. Why do I need another tool?"
The honest answer is that Raycast can copy file paths, and for some workflows it's excellent. But Pathly and Raycast approach the problem from fundamentally different starting points — and once you understand that difference, it's usually obvious which one (or both) you need.
What Raycast Offers
Raycast is a keyboard launcher — you summon it with ⌘Space, type something, and act on results. For file paths, the workflow looks like this:
Press ⌘Space to open Raycast
Type the filename (or part of it)
Wait for File Search results to populate
Navigate to the right file in results
Trigger the Copy Path action (⌘C or a shortcut key)
That's 5 steps minimum, and it assumes the search immediately surfaces the right file. If you have multiple files with similar names, or if you're not sure of the exact filename, steps 3 and 4 take longer. Community extensions add more path format options, but they require setup and their availability varies.
Raycast's core strength here is that it works without touching Finder at all. If you're deep in a coding session with your terminal, editor, and browser open, you can copy a file path without switching to Finder at all — just keyboard, stay in flow.
What Pathly Offers
Pathly is a Finder context menu extension. It doesn't add a keyboard launcher or a separate app — it adds actions to the right-click menu that's already there when you're in Finder.
Right-click the file in Finder
Click the path format you want
Two steps. No keyboard modifier, no remembering a filename, no separate launcher window. If you're already in Finder — looking at a folder, reviewing files, browsing a project — the path is one right-click away.
Pathly gives you five format choices in that single right-click: Copy Path (full POSIX), Copy Filename, Copy Directory (parent folder path), Copy as URL (file:// format), and Copy Git Path (path relative to the nearest .git root). Raycast's built-in path copy gives you one format.
The Fundamental Difference: How You Found the File
This is the key insight that makes it easy to know which tool to reach for:
Raycast: You know the filename. You want to find it and act on it without leaving the keyboard.
Pathly: You already found the file visually in Finder. You want its path without any extra steps.
The Raycast workflow starts with a name. You have to know — or be able to guess — what the file is called. If you're searching for "the config file" or "that CSV from last week" and you can't immediately recall the filename, Raycast search becomes a guessing game. You may get the wrong file if there are several with similar names, and you have to identify the right one from a list of results.
The Pathly workflow starts with a file you're already looking at. You navigated to it in Finder visually — browsed a folder, saw a thumbnail, recognized the file. You don't need to know its name to copy its path. You just right-click what's in front of you.
Feature Comparison
Who Should Use Only Raycast
If you almost never open Finder — you live in your terminal, your editor, and keyboard launchers — Raycast's file path copy may genuinely be enough. You're already in the keyboard-search mode of thinking. The extra steps fit naturally into how you work. You probably use Alfred, Raycast, or similar tools for everything, and adding another Finder-based tool would feel out of place.
Who Should Use Pathly
If any of the following sounds like you:
- You open Finder regularly to browse files, review project structures, or manage assets
- You copy file paths for terminal commands, AI prompts, documentation, Slack messages, or PR descriptions
- You've ever done the "hold Option while right-clicking" dance and found it annoying
- You need git-relative paths or file:// URLs without converting them manually
- You sometimes need to copy a path for a file you can't easily search for by name
...then Pathly solves a real, daily friction point in a way Raycast doesn't, because it lives exactly where the files are.
Who Should Use Both
Most Mac power users. Raycast handles the keyboard-first workflows — launching apps, quick calculations, clipboard history, switching windows. Pathly handles the Finder-first workflows — browsing, reviewing, copying paths with format options. They don't compete for the same interaction moment in practice.
I use both. Raycast runs constantly in the background for app switching, quick web searches, and the occasional calculator. But for path copying, I use Pathly — because my path-copying moments happen when I'm already in Finder looking at something. The file is right there. I right-click it, pick the format, done. I don't want to switch to a keyboard launcher and type out a filename that's already visible on screen. Different tools for genuinely different moments.
There's also a mental model mismatch in using Raycast for path copying when you're already in Finder: it means leaving where you are, switching modes from "visual browsing" to "keyboard search," finding the file again, then returning. Pathly lets you stay in the visual browsing mode and just add the path copy step without context-switching at all.
If you're trying Pathly for the first time, download it from the Mac App Store — it's a one-time purchase and integrates instantly. You'll notice whether it fits your workflow within the first day of use.