Fonts Manager - Alternatives to Extensis Connect Fonts (Suitcase Fusion) for Mac 2024

[Shlomit Heymann]

Good Morning 🙂
Sometimes it's easier to ask here than to search all over for an answer especially when the search options in adobe discussions is so poor and I always prefer to hear your thoughts about it.

My favorite and so far always and forever font manager application was the discontinued FontExplorer. I moved to Extensis Suitcase Fusion even before FontExplorer was discontinued, when it started to have various problems and I didn't have time to deal with it. I never liked the way Extensis Suitcase was handling things but I could live with it.

But now I can't. Now they took away the option to keep the font linked to a folder on the desktop (I always unchecked "copy to vaults" option as I hated the vault and wanted to "Reveal Font in Finder" when needed) and "forced" me to use the vault and to store on the cloud. 

I do believe this option should be mine to decide. I did wrote to them about it hoping other will too and that will bring this option back, but perhaps there is a better alternative, which is why I'm asking for your advice.

For me, these are a must options that I would like to have in a font manger (if I didn't forget any):
1. All fonts will stay linked to a desktop folder with an option to reveal in finder,
2. Create Sets of fonts,
3. Auto activation when open any adobe application that uses fonts,
4. Ability to type a sentence and see preview,
5. Viewing font Glyphs and Info.

It looks to me like "FontExpert" by Proxima could be an answer but it's not for Mac. I wonder if they will develop one for Mac too (I just wrote to them and asked). 

If you have any good ideas for me, please write it down, or if there is already a discussion about that from the past year and you can refer me to it, I will be happy too.

Thank you,

Good day,
Shlomit

[BobLevine]

I was a big Suitcase fan but I've reached the point where I find that no font manager is the best option for me.

That may not be what you want to hear, but it's where I'm at right now.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm with @BobLevine--in not using a font manager. However, in the past, I used and reviewed the for Layers magazine. I always liked FontAgent Pro. Just wait for updates to the font manager before making major updates to your main software programs. 

[dwspiv]

I have stuck with FontExplorer for as long as I could.  I have 14,000 fonts. I took the time to classify EVERY one of them. I was more than angry when Monotype decided to discontinue it. Now that I finally upgraded to Sonoma, FontExplorer constantly crashes. I have to move on. I was looking at Connect, but your very complaint of a vault in the cloud is a dela breaker for me. I need to make a decision of what to do. I will be paying attention to this discussion. TYPEFACE has positive reviews, but I have to look into it a lot more. Another interesting one is FONTBASE AWESOME (the paid version not the free). FontAgent and RightFont are 2 more I am considering.

[Kelly 352]

Just upgraded my iMac to Mac Mini with Sonoma - FontExplorer crashes every time I try and open. Looking at Fontbase Awesome - anyone used this? Thoughts / Pros / Cons?

thank you!

[Shlomit Heymann]

So, I got an answer from Proxima:

"Hello, Shlomit,
Thank you for message!
We are planning to develop a version for Mac,
but no version for Mac is available so far, unfortunately.

Best regards,
Alexander Kirichenko
proximasoftware.com"

I wonder how many people feels like me. But I'm glad I'm not the one 🙂

[Shlomit Heymann]

And here is the answer from Extensis:

Russell Cheung (Extensis)

May 7, 2024, 01:13 PDT

Greetings Shlomit,
 I can see that you had a chat session with Marcus yesterday in regards to recovering your vault.
 
As of version 25.0.2 all fonts are automatically copied to the vault and backed up to our cloud server. We automatically retain your fonts, the sets and the organisational structure of how they are grouped in our cloud so that they can be automatically recovered or replicated if you need to migrate to a new machine or recover from a technical issue.
 
We will no longer support the leave in place option as a lot of previous customer issues were caused by fonts or folders being accidentally deleted, moved or renamed.
 
If you wish to continue using the leave in place option you will need to remain on version 25.0.1 however you will need to be aware that there won't be any option to update plugins for future versions of Adobe CC in future.

Well, what an I say. It looks to me that this decision is not about getting efficient but in order to prevent support questions from users who are changing places or deleting fonts. "Hey, Lets cancel this option so we have less support questions". 

I'm so disappointed and frustrated. And angry too.

Shlomit

[Lou421]

"Hey, Lets cancel this option so we have less support questions".... Really?? Do you konw the job of a support team??? No because you stay in your little closed world. You guys are always complaining when a change is done... Like Ohhh my God, my life will stop tomorrow....Heyy it's just about fonts!!!!! Strange that when your I phone or Samsung or other provider make a change, you never complain!!!!

[Shlomit Heymann]

Actually yes. I was working years ago for Adobe main importers in Israel and I gave support to companies and private designers. I wrote technical support manuals when there weren't any in Hebrew. Now I have an InDesign free tips in Hebrew in order to help users. I was also a beta tester for the first company that create Hebrew-Arabic components for Adobe products. It was a hard work, more than support, and my attitude was always towards the users and how to improve their work. Today, apart from book layouting, I'm teaching InDesign, solving problems, helping users with problematic documents, both on forums and private support, and for that I need a good font manager.

The cancellation of this feature is major and there wasn’t a real reason for that accept for making it easier for them. I’m wondering how deeply you familiar with Extensis Connect and/or with other fonts manager applications I mentioned, and how many files/fonts you handle, but this is critical for me and as you see, to others as well. 

I do give feeback to apple when things don't work well on my iPhone, or Google, or any company that I use their products and something is not working good. People like us, that wants to improve products, are part of the reason that things get better for others. 

Your reaction is dismissive, ugly and childish. And yes, I do think that it was a decision in order to get less problems with the application and it was not in favor of us. 

Shlomit

[Shawn37932565j1ph]

[abuse removed by moderator]

[john.d.berry]

I can't speak for Extensis, but I know from experience that software companies are always reluctant to make changes that will result in more customer-help calls. A lot of practical innovation has been stifled by this reluctant.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Over the years, I've been through Suitcase, Font Agent Pro, then finally settled on Font Explorer when it came out (mostly because it was originally free) and stuck with it to this day, and I will until it no longer functions. Even though they had already stopped plugins for CC which made it a little less useful, I still have countless defined Sets and tools that still makes it good to have. Right now, the best "established" alternative seems to be Font Agent Pro, mostly because they still sell a standalone license alongside a subscription model. They do have a 30-day trial if you want to check it out.

As far as the new players, I'm leary... they do not have the years of practical experience.

[dwspiv]

THe subscription vs. purchase is less important to me than the function of the product. How well does FontAgent Pro work compared to Explorer? Ease of activation/deactivation, sets, robust  font preview and being able to classify fonts, ability to export the set of fonts used, as well as maintain my fonts OUTSIDE of the system folder are the main features I desire. Missing from Explorer is the ability to directly compare 2 fonts - which Io would want.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

@dwspiv I haven't used Font Agent Pro in many years so not sure of its current abilities. I just offered it as a possible alternative. That being said, I did like it when I used it.

[dwspiv]

Update to my post. I did a Google search and someone recommended going into the preferences of Font Explorer fo it to warn before quitting. It solved the problem for now. It also recommended clearing the font caches via the Apple go menu and finding the caches and manually deleting. Not sure why they recommended that when you can, from the tools menu of explorer, go in and empoty Application font caches and system font caches.  But, ultimately, this has bought me more time to find a replacement.

[Scott Falkner]

FontExplorer X Pro has been working for me so far. M1 Macbook running Sonoma. Until it fails to work for me it will be my font manager of choice. After that, probably Typeface.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

@Scott Falkner . Indeed. I will be doing the same. Of course, FEX no longer has plugins for anything past CC2022, but that's a minor annoyance.

[andreas_8839]

@Scott Falkner I have to move a customer from Intel to Apple Silicon Macs, that is using FEX with macOS 11 so far. Unluckily I can´t find any available download for the Apple Silicon version 7.3.0 of FEX. I already contacted FEX support. The answer from Monotype support tells me that I can purchase a Monotype plan or use a new product called Monotype Desktop App which I am not able to find anything about on their website. Do you know an online ressource to download the Apple silicon version of FEX?

[leo.r]

https://support.monotype.com/en/articles/7859096-syncing-and-installing-fonts-with-monotype-desktop-...

[andreas_8839]

@leo.r thanks for the link. The app requires a login to be used, so I will have to check with Monotype if I need to subsribe to a payed plan to test it. 

[andreas_8839]

@leo.r  just used the 30 days trial 😉

[Shlomit Heymann]

Thank you🙏

I will check out Font Agent. 

[StephenVosloo]

Just found "TypeFace" https://typefaceapp.com/help/articles/migrate/suitcase you can import your suitcase tags and vault if you had one. It's lightning fast, you can host all your fonts locally and organize them the way you want and best of all they're nto doign a crazy money grab like Extensis — $36. it's PEREFCT 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Nice!

[ivanm74201558]

Did anyone tried RightFont? What are your thoughts?