Products · Pattern or everyday thing
File pickers
Raised as a usability problem by 12 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2012–2025), in 11 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 12 complaints
- Accidental clicks on background lose multi-item selections2025-06-29
- Modal file picker blocks using other tabs until it is closed2024-12-06
- Typing to search in file chooser shows nonsensical UI and can remove folder permissions2023-09-14
- Hard to find files; users give up or ask friends for help2022-10-02
- Takes over a minute to navigate to a folder in file dialogs2022-09-06
- Navigating folders in file pickers is slow and mentally taxing as files accumulate2022-06-17
- A stray keypress pops up a confusing filtered file list in the save dialog2021-09-24
- Multi-select file picker reused for saving, which makes no sense there2021-09-24
- Custom file picker lacks address bar, forcing manual navigation to reach locations2021-07-21
- File pickers are a hassle on websites that offer no easy alternative for uploading2021-05-14
- File choosers inconsistent: some apps show no image previews and local vs networked files look identical but differ2021-03-21
- Users must manually shuttle data between apps, creating multiple confusing copies2012-06-29