Tom let me know about BBFileScout which is a free (but donation strongly requested) file system browser application for BlackBerry that truly impressed me. It supports OS 4.3+ devices and offers you a TON OF FEATURES! You have to see it to understand below. Just seeing this makes me wonder why RIM did not bother giving us a proper file system browser integrated into the OS.
Core Features:
- BBFileScout allows you to browse the file system of your BB (including hidden files)
- Create directories, copy, move, rename or delete files
- Zipping files or complete directory structures
- Extracting Zip archives (incl. structures)
- Furthermore BBFileScout supports copying and deleting of complete directory structures
- You can open all (by your Blackberry supported) media files
- Register additional file types with other (3′rd party) applications (like pdf’s)
- BBFileScout allows you to open files (like ini, xml, etc.) as plain text, so you are able to edit, mark, copy & paste text fragments of these files that normally can’t be opened with your Blackberry. This can become very valuable when you receive eMail attachments that are not native supported by your Blackberry
- With BBFileScout you can delete pre installed wallpapers, videos and ringtones in order to free memory on your device*** – but please note, that once they are deleted the only way to get them back is to hard reset your device!
Product page and desktop install link: bb.emacf1.com/bbfilescout.html
OTA install link: bb.emacf1.com/BBFileScout.jad
The developer calls BBFileScout a pay-what-you-want application. That means if you find the application useful and you want him to continue developing it then please send him a donation for his time. You can find the donation link on the product page.
Full feature list:
- Browse over the file system of your BlackBerry device
- Show hidden files and directories (indicated by grey name)
- Show ‘encrypted content’ (indicated by a lock icon
) - Creating new directories
- Copy a file from one folder to another – to do so:
- select a file in any directory
- choose Store ‘[SourceFile]‘ on Stack from the menu
- browse to the target folder
- select Copy ‘[SourceFile]‘ to ‘[CurrentDir]‘ from the menu.
- Move files* (in the same way as copy a file)
- Renaming existing files*
- Delete existing files [even ones that are preinstalled (like wallpapers or ringtones)]*, ***
- Copy complete directory structures (including all it’s content) in the same way as single files can be copied
- Move complete directory structures (including all it’s content) in the same way as single files can be moved
- Delete directories with all its content (recursive)*
- Unpack ZIP-Archives (including directory structures)
- Create a ZIP-Archive from a selected file
- Create a ZIP-Archive from a selected directory (including all it’s content/recursive)
- Opening Media-Files**:
- Audio: W4A|AAC|MP3|WAV|AU3|MID|WMA
- Video: MPEG|AVI|MP4|3GP
- Image: JPG|PNG|GIF|TIFF|SVG|BMP
- Office (requires installed "Office to go"): DOC|XLS|PPT
- Other: TXT|HTML
- Opening custom registered files:
- BBFileScout allows you to associate own file extensions with custom applications (like you might know it from other OS)
- Simply enter the extension [without '.' (dot)] in the BBFileScout-Options
- Once such an associations is configured (via BBFileScout options) you could open any file type with any application that you have registered****
- Opening Files in a SimpleTextViewer:
- You can open small files (smaller then 250KiB) in plain text mode – This enables you to open XML’s, INI’s or any kind of script files (or any other files) in your BlackBerry
- Once the file is opened, you can mark/select text and copy it into the clipboard (to use it where ever you like or need it)
- Opening Files in a SimpleTextEditor:
- Once it’s enabled in the options you can edit the text files that you have opened in the SimpleTextEditor. But BBFileScout is still far away from becoming a fully functional text editor (that might change in further releases).
- by default all files will be open with UTF-8 character encoding
- Re-read file with different encodings:
- Re-read file with ‘UTF-8′ encoding
- Re-read file with ‘ISO-8859-1′ encoding
- Re-read file with ‘UTF-16BE’ encoding
- Re-read file with ‘US-ASCII’ encoding
- Save File
- Save File as…
- both ‘save’ functions will use UTF-8 encoding
- Options:
- Confirm Exit of BBFileScout
- Confirm Delete of files & directories
- Show hidden files & directories
- Sort directory content [will separate directories and files from each other and sort them by name (case insensitive)]
- Allow editing in SimpleTextViewer
- Custom file associations
- Key short cuts:
- [C|V]: (C)opy to Clipboard [store the actual selected file/dir on the Stack]
- [O|P]: (P)aste from Clipboard [copy the current file on the stack to the current directory]
- [M]: (M)ove from Clipboard [move the current file on the stack to the current directory
- [DEL|Backspace]: (Del)ete file/directory
- [A|S]: (A)rchive file/directory
- [E|R]: (R)rename file/directory
- [D|F]: Create NEW (d)irectory
- [T|Z] [T|Y]: (T)ext mode Edit [open the current file in the simple text viewer/editor]

Area51 Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 3:02 PM EST
False statement, you DON’T get media deleted by doing a hard reset. You’ll have to load them up through Desktop Manager.
Neng Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 4:30 PM EST
i used this program to delete those annoying OEM media files…with success!
soundium Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 4:47 PM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
Does’t work at all on 8900. Application crashed and make system instabil.
javatyger Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 2:34 AM EST
Yeah it does. I’m using a 8900 on .168 and it works perfectly.
Queen4111 Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 5:41 PM EST
Is this better than the “File Manager” from TerraMobility?
... Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 5:55 PM EST
For the price it kicks TerraMobility’s butt 10 miles away
Paul H Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 10:02 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
Ok, so I deleted the “speedracer” video on my new Bold, but it didn’t free any memory.
Anyone know why? It gave the deletion warning, which I accepted, and it’s gone from the directory. It’s a 32 Mb file but with it gone there’s still only 25 Mb free.
It’s certainly very obnoxious that the phone comes with such a big waste of valuable memory!
lol Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 11:13 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
907 Invalid COD
Unable to import ZIP file
gggg Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 12:21 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8800
I’m getting java module is missing
BB 8800
spcurtis81 ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 48
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 3:36 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
I’ve still got the old freebie Rove File Manager on my bold but this is much much quicker. Very nice
Ed Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 7:13 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8330
Unless I am missing something it Doesn’t seem to let you do bulk operations on files. If I want to move 20 files I have move 20 times. I can’t. Just higlight the files I want to move then move them. The terramobility manager let’s me do that.is there a way to do that?
wkj917 ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 1
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 7:52 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8100
“907 Invalid COD
Unable to import ZIP file”showing to me when I download .8100 4.5.0.81.what is going wrong?
JonStrong Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 10:10 AM EST
Just downloaded OTA to my 8900 running .168, and BBFileScout seems to work just fine. Very nice!
- Jon
StormPooper Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 10:29 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8300
I’m also getting:
907 Invalid CODUnable to import ZIP fil
StormPooper Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 10:34 AM EST
I’m also getting the following:
’907 Invalid COD
Unable to import ZIP file’
I’m running 4.5.0.110 (152) on an 8300. Any ideas?
rumour Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 11:34 AM EST
I just deleted this program, terramobility pro file manager is better with the exception of the cost. I wasn’t about to move any files on my 8330 which is why I needed a file manager program. I wasn’t able to zip or unzip compressed files. But you get what you pay for even if its free.
emac Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 6:20 AM EST
for those, struggling with the (OTA) installation – I am sorry… there is a new version (0.4.8) already available (I am not sure, IF this will solve some issues – since I am a Strom owner, I just can “test” my application with this device physically – the rest have to be done via simulators…
If you want to help me, ironing out these issues I would love to read your feedback at the BBFilescout HP/forum.
TIA
PS: for those who are not happy with the application: there is a good news: you are not forced to use it
Ed Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 9:37 AM EST
Your comment remind me of something important. Thanks for providing this app gratis. This is especially significant since I don’t think it’s possible to make it free of dollar cost to the developer. Doesn’t RIM charge $100 for a signed cert? Of course, tine is money so nothing is ever free.
Regardless, I hope everyone else remembers to temper their comments.
emac Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 10:59 AM EST
Just for the correctness – RIM is charging 20,- USD for a signing key – which is very a fair price since they need to cover their own administrative costs.
BBFileScout is offered on a ‘pay-what-you-want’ basis simply to give the users a feeling that my time (that I have spend with writing this) have at least some value. 0:-)
Ed Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM EST
Duh… donationware != free… but it’s still nice given the current economic climate.
Paul H Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 10:14 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
My comment about deleting “Speedracer” above was confused. My problem had nothing to do with this program, which I’m happy to keep.
emac Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 2:38 PM EST
BBFileScout 0.4.9 released – now with “bulk” support for
Copy, Move, Delete and ZIP
Select/deselect files with the SPACE-Key (would be nice, if the inital news might could be updated – TIA)
Ed Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 6:59 PM EST
Thanks for the update. i can’t wait to try it out. Bulk operations on files is something that most BB file managers leave out.
emac Not Registered
Posted: March 8, 2009 at 2:19 PM EST
just for the records – we are already at 0.4.12