File info window always opening on left of screen?

[JulianL]

I've just switched to MacOS after about 35 years as a Windows user and this is the end of my first week of Mac (M5 Pro MacBook Pro) ownership. I'm mostly loving it, both MacOS (albeit with some reservations) and my new M5 Pro MacBook Pro hardware (with absolutely no reservations - the hardware is amazing), but there's one behaviour that's driving me nuts because it just seems so wrong. None of the suggestions I've found on the web to stop it happening have worked (disable Stage Manager - I have that disabled anyway - and/or turn off tiling which I tried but it made no difference) so I'm wondering if it's a bug, if I just haven't found the right setting to adjust to disable the behaviour, or if it's by design. (If it is by design then anyone who can convince me it's a good design choice has impressive powers of persuasion.)

What I'm seeing is that if I have some icons (files) on my desktop positioned right next to the right edge of my screen (which is where I think MacOS places desktop icons by default) and I control/right click on a file icon to get its context menu and then select "Get info" from the context menu I see a small window I assume with the file info pop up just to the left of the file's icon (exactly where I would want/expect it to appear) but then almost immediately (within maybe a tenth of a second - far too quickly to look at any of the info displayed) it zooms across the display all the way until it gets to the left edge of the screen where it stops. I can then drag it back over to be nearer to the file whose info it is displaying but it's really pretty annoying because I find the behaviour so curious. When initiating the action I'm by definition going to be focussed on the context menu right next to the file icon but the info window that the command invokes ends up being positioned as far away as it can possibly be from where my visual focus was when the command was initiated. Maybe it's not such a big deal when using a laptop screen but it's very annoying when using a large screen (mine is 32") and it must be even worse for someone using an ultra-wide screen.

I see the same behaviour with a few other types of pop-up windows where they scoot across to the far left of the display but this one is easiest to reproduce. If it's a bug then at least if I know that I can stop searching for some setting to change to stop it from happening (and I'll report the bug to Apple). If it is by design then is there any way to stop it from happening? As mentioned above messing with Stage Manager and tiling settings didn't help.

 

[MacCheetah3]

It’s not a bug, but indeed by design. Why? I don’t know. Guesses? Well… The info windows auto-tile if you select Get Info on multiple files/folders. So, perhaps that’s part of the original concept/idea/reason.

 

[Ben J.]

Not a 'fix' as such, but if you press 'option' when you right-click, you'll see the 'get info' in context menu change to 'show Inspector'. This will give you a floating window similar to the info box, but it will show the info for any item you select. You could invoke that inspector window and have it sitting anywhere you prefer.

 

[Ben J.]

BTW, welcome to the mac world. If you haven't already, you should really check out

MacMost: Mac Video Tutorials and Tips for Apple Users

MacMost: MacMost: Mac Video Tutorials and Tips for Apple Users

macmost.com

It's fantastic free resource for anything mac. Very clear, no-nonsense videos on youtube. Covers almost anything. Many videos about coming from windows to mac. I've been using macs for over three decades, and I always learn something new with Gary's videos.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Probably a relic of small screen days.

I have found that macOS remembers the position of the Inspector even after it has been closed.

You can also make a Quick Action with Automator that, with a Finder item selected, will open the Get Info window and center it on your desktop.

Here's the above applescript for that:

on run {input, parameters}
   
    if input is {} then return input
   
    set theItem to item 1 of input
   
    -- Reveal Get Info window
    tell application "Finder"
        activate
        open information window of theItem
    end tell
   
    -- Give Finder time to create the window
    delay 0.3
   
    tell application "Finder"
        set screenBounds to bounds of window of desktop
        set screenWidth to item 3 of screenBounds
        set screenHeight to item 4 of screenBounds
    end tell
   
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Finder"
           
            -- Frontmost window should now be Get Info
            set w to front window
           
            set winPos to position of w
            set winSize to size of w
           
            set winWidth to item 1 of winSize
            set winHeight to item 2 of winSize
           
            set newLeft to (screenWidth - winWidth) / 2
            set newTop to (screenHeight - winHeight) / 2
           
            set position of w to {newLeft, newTop}
           
        end tell
    end tell
   
    return input
   
end run

 

[JulianL]

It’s not a bug, but indeed by design. Why? I don’t know. Guesses? Well… The info windows auto-tile if you select Get Info on multiple files/folders. So, perhaps that’s part of the original concept/idea/reason.

Thank you. It still drives me nuts but I can see the train of thought (on Apple's part) behind your guess in that perhaps the behaviour makes sense on multi-selected items but for he best user experience I really wish Apple had made an exception and implemented different behaviour for single-selected items. I understand the benefits of consistency but sometimes a line can be crossed in trying to extend consistency too far and apply it in areas where the consistent behaviour isn't the optimum behaviour for a particular use..

On balance I'm coming out on top in my Windows to Mac migration. Pretty much all of the things that I thought would be an issue in terms of missing a Windows feature or having difficulty adapting to a different way of doing something in MacOS really haven't ended up being any big deal at all and even this sprint-to-the-left thing, while it really does bug me at a conceptual level, is related to an action I am rarely likely to invoke (Get Info - I was mostly using it to look at folder and file sizes as I moved my user data from my Windows PC to my Mac) so I'll get over my outrage and it not let it really impact me thereafter.

Thanks for your help in letting me know that it's not a bug.

 

[JulianL]

Not a 'fix' as such, but if you press 'option' when you right-click, you'll see the 'get info' in context menu change to 'show Inspector'. This will give you a floating window similar to the info box, but it will show the info for any item you select. You could invoke that inspector window and have it sitting anywhere you prefer.

Thanks. As mentioned in my reply to MacCheetah3, I doubt I'll need to use Get-Info much after my initial migration but this is good to know if I do.

I had found Gary's stuff at MacMost by the way and it was a mixed blessing. As you say it's very helpful including the videos specifically addressing issues related to Windows to Mac migration but as I started watching more of his videos and seeing some of the interesting stuff I could do in MacOS that I couldn't in Windows I started getting more and more impatient waiting for the M5 Pro MacBook Pros to be released so that I could start my transition so Gary's videos, and the excitement about moving that they created, made that wait all the more agonising! Still, I'm here now and it's great.

 

[JulianL]

Probably a relic of small screen days.

I have found that macOS remembers the position of the Inspector even after it has been closed.

You can also make a Quick Action with Automator that, with a Finder item selected, will open the Get Info window and center it on your desktop.
....

Thanks so much for taking that time to post that.

I agree about the current behaviour maybe being a relic of the small screen days. I've wondered for a long time now whether the top-of-display menu bar for the currently active app is also a relic of small screen days and after a week of hands-on MacOS time I still wonder that.

I confess that the menu-at-top thing has caught me out quite a lot this first week where I keep acting like a Windows user and trying to find things to tweak by looking for menus and options accessible from within an application's window and completely forgetting that on MacOS the active application displays its main menu along the top of the display rather than within its own display window and once I remember that the application's top menu usually has the options and/or actions that I was trying to find. I'm managing to remember that the top-menu is there now though so I'm over that hurdle as well.

I'm moving forward, albeit with a few stumbles along the way.