10 Essential Tips for Using the macOS Finder More Efficiently

[organicCPU]

It would be nice if there was a way to make the items you pin to the toolbar only an icon, not an icon with text, while the rest of the buttons remain icons with text...some file names are so long they take up too much horizontal space up there.

If you pin an Alias to the toolbar and exchange its name with just one or more empty spacebar characters, you'll come quite close to what you like.

I guess the "Keep folders on top when sorting by name" option must have been added after El Capitan, because I don't see it when I navigate to Finder preferences.

You're right, it must have been introduced in macOS Sierra.

...I bet there's a way to do it via terminal.

In Sierra one can get the boolean value of the current setting like this:

defaults read com.apple.finder.plist _FXSortFoldersFirst

In Sierra this activates sorting the folders first:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool TRUE

This reverts the change:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool FALSE

If you're keen enough to try this out on macOS El Capitan, I recommend that you backup at least the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist before.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Macrumors! You all are on fire lately! Great article!

 

[unfrostedpoptar]

Why can you only merge all Finder windows? It would be so much more useful if it worked like browser tabs and you could just drag the tabs apart or together to group in a window. It's a pain to only be able to merge all. I hope this is fixed in 10.14!

 

[TheralSadurns]

Why can you only merge all Finder windows? It would be so much more useful if it worked like browser tabs and you could just drag the tabs apart or together to group in a window. It's a pain to only be able to merge all. I hope this is fixed in 10.14!

Uhm... Idk man... but in High Sierra you can do EXACTY this. Have two Finder windows open with multiple tabs. Drag one tab to the other window. Works fine for me!

Meanwhile in Windows Land... people don't even HAVE tabs in Explorer...

 

[unfrostedpoptar]

Uhm... Idk man... but in High Sierra you can do EXACTY this. Have two Finder windows open with multiple tabs. Drag one tab to the other window. Works fine for me!

Meanwhile in Windows Land... people don't even HAVE tabs in Explorer...

Wow - you're right. When was this added and how did I miss it?

Thanks,

David

 

[TheralSadurns]

Wow - you're right. When was this added and how did I miss it?

Thanks,

David

Np.
Idk... NOT recently... been doing this for at least since Sierra?!

 

[ignatius345]

Not sure whether it's really a big "tip" -- but I have noticed recently that if you slowly drag two Finder windows toward each other, there's now a little "snap distance" that will help you line them up when they touch at the edges. It's just a few pixels, easy to miss. Not entirely sure how necessary this is, but it's a nice detail if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

I'll be looking into some of these! Seems like something I could use - just to refresh my memory on Finder and maybe even learn some new stuff.

 

[TheralSadurns]

Not sure whether it's really a big "tip" -- but I have noticed recently that if you slowly drag two Finder windows toward each other, there's now a little "snap distance" that will help you line them up when they touch at the edges. It's just a few pixels, easy to miss. Not entirely sure how necessary this is, but it's a nice detail if you're into that kind of thing.
[doublepost=1523928693][/doublepost]The "Go" menu can be pretty useful too. There are nice keyboard shortcuts to a bunch of places:

View attachment 758578

Oh if you are talking about THAT kind of window snapping... it's not just Finder windows. ALL windows have this little barrier when you
a) move one window next and then over the over... so that... if you do it slowly the borders will line up pixel perfectly and the windows will NOT overlap right away.
b) this works on 2 dimensions... so if you move the side borders to match... it will also snap into place if you move the window up/down to the height of the other window.

 

[ignatius345]

Oh if you are talking about THAT kind of window snapping... it's not just Finder windows. ALL windows have this little barrier when you
a) move one window next and then over the over... so that... if you do it slowly the borders will line up pixel perfectly and the windows will NOT overlap right away.
b) this works on 2 dimensions... so if you move the side borders to match... it will also snap into place if you move the window up/down to the height of the other window.

You're right! I guess it's more a feature of the whole window management system. I don't remember this always being the case, but it's nicely done. It's fairly subtle so you can blow past it if you don't care -- but if you find youself trying to line windows up, it comes into play at just the right number of pixels. There's nothing better in a UI than something that just becomes apparent at the moment you need it but otherwise stays out of your way.

 

[TheralSadurns]

You're right! I guess it's more a feature of the whole window management system. I don't remember this always being the case, but it's nicely done. It's fairly subtle so you can blow past it if you don't care -- but if you find youself trying to line windows up, it comes into play at just the right number of pixels. There's nothing better in a UI than something that just becomes apparent at the moment you need it but otherwise stays out of your way.

Exactly. It's live since... umm... Sierra or High Sierra. Don't really remember.
Also... just in case you don't know. You can also double click the double arrow on a windows edge to extend it in this direction. I hope you understand what I mean.

Just place a window smack in the middle of your screen, and make it NOT full screen. Then readjust the size from the edges. BUT... don't CLICK and PULL on the edge... just double click it.


These two features alone drive me up the walls when I use Windows (like the OS... not application windows ).

 

[ignatius345]

Exactly. It's live since... umm... Sierra or High Sierra. Don't really remember.
Also... just in case you don't know. You can also double click the double arrow on a windows edge to extend it in this direction. I hope you understand what I mean.

Just place a window smack in the middle of your screen, and make it NOT full screen. Then readjust the size from the edges. BUT... don't CLICK and PULL on the edge... just double click it.


These two features alone drive me up the walls when I use Windows (like the OS... not application windows ).

Whoa, that's great, thanks! BetterSnapTool is great and all, but I do love me a native UI feature when I can get it.

I do rather wish this was reversible (if double-clicking the edge again returned the edge to its original position). Ah well.

edit: A couple more awesome window resizing tricks I just discovered:

1) hold down option and drag an edge and the opposite edge will also drag proportionally (simpler than my explanation);

2) hold down shift and drag any edge -- the whole window grows or shrinks while retaining its original proportions

edit 2: Turns out these same shortcuts also work in Pages (and other iWork apps I assume) when manipulating the edges of objects. Very smart.

 

[gjbarton]

The Finder is a classic Mac system component that's ever-present on your desktop, ready to help you find and organize your documents, media, folders, and other files. It's the smiling icon known as the Happy Mac logo on your Dock, and includes the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

A lot of hidden power resides in every Finder window. In this article, we've highlighted some of our favorite Finder tips and tricks to help you work more efficiently with files and folders on your Mac.


Click here to read more...

Article Link: 10 Essential Tips for Using the macOS Finder More Efficiently

This is a really helpful article that taught me some new things - e.g. pinning apps to the toolbar! However, I have another question. I moved from Windows to mac 5 years ago. One standard feature of the Windows explorer is the ability to create a new file for an app in the folder you are currently "in". You just do this by right-clicking in the folder and selecting from a list of possible apps to create a file for and open there. I've yet to find a way to do this on the mac.
What I have to do instead is open the application, create a new file, then when I save, I have to navigate back to the folder I was in to make it save there. If I switch to a different folder to create a new file, I have to go through the whole rigmarole again.

If I am always working in the same folder, it is not a problem of course, but I work on multiple projects at the same time in different folders, so this is slows my work down. I've kind of got used to the limitation, but there is surely a workaround that would make me love my mac even more!

 

[TheralSadurns]

This is a really helpful article that taught me some new things - e.g. pinning apps to the toolbar! However, I have another question. I moved from Windows to mac 5 years ago. One standard feature of the Windows explorer is the ability to create a new file for an app in the folder you are currently "in". You just do this by right-clicking in the folder and selecting from a list of possible apps to create a file for and open there. I've yet to find a way to do this on the mac.
What I have to do instead is open the application, create a new file, then when I save, I have to navigate back to the folder I was in to make it save there. If I switch to a different folder to create a new file, I have to go through the whole rigmarole again.

If I am always working in the same folder, it is not a problem of course, but I work on multiple projects at the same time in different folders, so this is slows my work down. I've kind of got used to the limitation, but there is surely a workaround that would make me love my mac even more!

There may be different ways of how you can do this. Here is what I do. It may sound weird if you come from a Windows background, but it works very well. You should try it.


1. Open the folder you are working with in Finder.
Let's say you work on an invoice...
so open Folder "Macintosh HD/Users/YourName/Documents/Invoices/2018/

2. Open the Application you wanna work with... and edit your file... blah blah. And click "Save As…".
A dialog will open that will most likely point to your desktop, or the location you used last.
Now here is the trick:

3. You still have that other Finder window open, drag one file or the folder itself... TO THE SAVE AS DIALOG.
As if you wanted to move one file from one window to another via drag and drop.
What happens is that it doesn't move anything... but rather... it selects this folder in your save as dialog.




Two other options I can recommend...
if you already have a file in said folder... you can simply DUPLICATE it via the Finder's menu... and then work on the copy... in which case you won't have to fiddle with the folder path at all.

or... define one file as a TEMPLATE. You can do this in the "Get Info" Panel of any document... and select a checkbox that reads "Stationary Pad". Now... every time you try to open this via a double click or CMD+O... it instead duplicates the file... and then opens said duplicate... leaving the original one untouched. Super handy.


I hope this helps.

 

[gjbarton]

Many thanks for those suggestions! I'll explore them all and see which work best for my workflow. Thanks again. G.

 

[gjbarton]

OK, I had a chance to play. The first option was completely new to me and works well for what I need. - I would never have guessed it was possible to drag the file/folder across and have that useful behaviour.

I'd still prefer to define the app and location of file when I open it, but that doesn't seem to be possible in the finder. I had hoped that launching an app that was pinned to the finder would open the file in that folder, but it doesn't. Maybe there is some arcane command-line option to change this behaviour? It would be great if you could have the option to "Make current folder the working folder" when you clicked on the app.

There is another workaround which is to use windows explorer in a VM running in VMware fusion. That works well but is overkill for a small improvement in usability.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

G.
[doublepost=1536999611][/doublepost]

OK, I had a chance to play. The first option was completely new to me and works well for what I need. - I would never have guessed it was possible to drag the file/folder across and have that useful behaviour.

I'd still prefer to define the app and location of file when I open it, but that doesn't seem to be possible in the finder. I had hoped that launching an app that was pinned to the finder would open the file in that folder, but it doesn't. Maybe there is some arcane command-line option to change this behaviour? It would be great if you could have the option to "Make current folder the working folder" when you clicked on the app.

There is another workaround which is to use windows explorer in a VM running in VMware fusion. That works well but is overkill for a small improvement in usability.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

G.

I should add that of course, the VMWare Unity option will only allow you to launch Windows apps from the explorer. This is OK for MS apps that I have installed on both systems but not a perfect solution. It also means you are running a full copy of MS Windows in parallel with OSX on the mac so it takes resources. Not worth it just for the file browser but good for Windows apps that are not on the mac (or inferior on the mac).

 

[mpainesyd]

This macOS app seems to do what you want
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/easy-new-file/id1162194131?ls=1&mt=12
It creates a new action icon in the Finder window

Note that you need to go to System Preferences/Extensions and enable the app for Finder.

 

[gjbarton]

Perfect! Many thanks - that does pretty much what I was looking for.

 

[mpainesyd]

Perfect! Many thanks - that does pretty much what I was looking for.

I have since tried the app by creating a file called test.doc. I then opened it with Word (double clicking on the file name) and it worked. I was pleasantly surprised (a first!) that Word happily opens an empty file. I plan to start using your technique for managing project documents.

 

[gjbarton]

Perfect! Many thanks - that does pretty much what I was looking for.

I've used it a bit more, had some emails with the author to find out how to add additional applications. In fact you can't add applications, only file types that are linked to applications. I guess this is OK but a bit more limited than I had hoped for which would be:

Menu of Applications possibly with multiple entries for each application to allow creation and opening of different supported file types in the folder. (e.g. for Illustrator this might be .ai, .ps, .eps, .pdf etc).

Anyway, still a useful little plugin. I can't see why the Finder doesn't support this natively.
[doublepost=1537344528][/doublepost]

I have since tried the app by creating a file called test.doc. I then opened it with Word (double clicking on the file name) and it worked. I was pleasantly surprised (a first!) that Word happily opens an empty file. I plan to start using your technique for managing project documents.

You can make the app automatically open Word once the file is created. There is a tickbox option for this, much nicer than having to double-click!

 

[dfs]

The Finder is a classic Mac system component that's ever-present on your desktop, ready to help you find and organize your documents, media, folders, and other files. It's the smiling icon known as the Happy Mac logo on your Dock, and includes the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

A lot of hidden power resides in every Finder window. In this article, we've highlighted some of our favorite Finder tips and tricks to help you work more efficiently with files and folders on your Mac.


Click here to read more...

Article Link: 10 Essential Tips for Using the macOS Finder More Efficiently

What I'd love is a way to defeat what I think is Finder's most annoying feature. Try this: a.) open a window, drag it to the size and shape you prefer. Call the result Window A. b.) close it, do the same and call it Window B.
c.) close it and reopen Window A. It now assumes the size and shape of Window B. I

I'd love it if there way of defeating this so that once I have Window A set up the way I want I can go ahead and do a bunch of other stuff and then return to it, confident that I will find it in just the condition I left it. This would go a long way towards giving me the feeling I'm the boss.

 

[petzl]

Shift + Command + . to show hidden files is also very important

This doesn't seem to work on El Capitan 10.11.6 ...

 

[Arcade]

One of my favorite features of the Mac is the finder. I guess it's because in windows I use to use windows explorer a lot. What I love about is how everything is done through the finder and there's no start menu, all programs...