Prefab puts your templates in FinderFile Explorer's right-click menu, so a folder can be created where you are already standing.
macOS keeps extensions switched off until you say otherwise, so it needs enabling once.
Turning it on
⌘,Ctrl+,, or Settings… from the menu bar icon.
It is near the bottom of the General page. Click Open Extension Settings.
The button opens System Settings at the Finder Extensions list itself, rather than the general Extensions pane. Prefab appears there once macOS has seen the app.
Shown on macOS. This screen has no Windows equivalent.
There is nothing to switch on. Windows registers the menu when Prefab is installed, and it is there the next time you right-click.
On Windows 11 the entry is in the main right-click menu. On Windows 10, and in the older menu Windows 11 still offers under Show more options, it appears in that list instead. Both do the same thing.
Using it
Right-click a folder, a file, or the empty background of a FinderFile Explorer window, and choose New Folder(s) from Template. The submenu lists your templates in alphabetical order, with Open Prefab at the bottom.
Where the template lands depends on what you right-clicked:
- A folder: the template is built inside that folder.
- A file: the template is built in the folder containing it.
- The window background: the template is built in the folder you are looking at.
When it asks for values
The menu decides on its own whether the deploy needs a prompt. It counts a placeholder as needing input when it is required, has no default value, and is not one of the built-ins. Global placeholders the template uses without defining are weighed the same way.
So a template whose placeholders all carry defaults is deployed without asking anything. If you want to be asked, give the placeholder a blank default and mark it required.
Why Prefab starts up in the background
The menu never creates anything itself. It works out which folder you meant, then hands the whole
job to the app as a prefab://deploy link, which is why everything a template can do still works
from FinderFile Explorer.
There are two reasons it has to be that way. Right-clicking a folder is not the same as choosing it in a save panel, so the extension has no permission to write there; the app is the side that holds the folder bookmarks and can ask for access when it has none. And the extension cannot run a template's actions - terminal commands in particular need the shell runner from the app's own container.
The extension opens the copy of Prefab it shipped inside, rather than asking macOS to resolve
prefab://, so a second copy of the app on your Mac cannot end up being launched alongside the one
you are using.
The reason is the same one that shapes it on macOS: the part of Prefab that File Explorer loads is a small piece of code running inside Explorer itself, and it has no business creating folders or running a template's actions. It finds the app by reading Prefab's own registration, so it does not have to guess where the app was installed.
A deploy started from Finder wakes Prefab without opening its window or putting up a Dock icon, and hands focus back to Finder when it finishes.
A deploy started from File Explorer wakes Prefab without opening its window or putting anything on the taskbar, and hands focus back to Explorer when it finishes.
If the template needs values, the prompt appears on its own in front of FinderFile Explorer.
When it does not appear
Finder loads the registered copy of the extension, which is the one inside the copy of Prefab in your Applications folder. Keeping a single copy there avoids most of the confusion.
Explorer caches its menus. Signing out and back in, or restarting Explorer from Task Manager, is usually enough to make a newly installed Prefab appear.
If the menu is missing altogether, or a template refuses to open from it, see Troubleshooting.