The Three Different Types of Get Info Window in the Mac Finder

Most Mac users know how to use Get Info or Command+i. But there are two more variations of this window that can be more useful in different situations.

Video Transcript: Hi! This is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you the three different modes of the Get Info Window in the Mac Finder. 
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So in the Finder on your Mac you can choose a File and then use Command i or File, Get Info to get all sorts of information about the file you've selected. So, for instance, I can select this file here. I can go to File, Get Info, and you can see the keyboard shortcut is Command i, and it brings up this window here. At the top you see the name of the file you've selected and the word Info and then you see its icon, you see the name, you see the file size here, the last modified date. You can see any Tags that are associated with that file. Then you have these different sections. You can reveal these different sections with the little Disclosure triangle here on the left. The first one, General, gives you information like the Kind, More Detail about the size, where it is located, the date it was created, and such. Under More Info you can see lots of other information. This may change depending on the type of file. So in this case it is an image so you can see things like Dimensions, the color space, whether there is an output channel, all sorts of things like that. Each one of these gives you more and more information. Here's the name again but this time in an editable window so you can actually change the name here. You've got Comments, if you want to see that. Open With, and you can set the default app to open this file. You've got a Preview area and some file types, like in Image here, will give you a preview. You see Sharing and Permissions as the last one. So you can open and close these sections as you need and it will remember that and show you that in the Info window.  
Now if you want to get information about another file you would select that file, like that, and do Command i or File, Get Info, and then you have a second window here. Each one of these showing the information for the file that was selected when you choose that file. So if you want to get info on a lot of files you're going to have a lot of these little windows open. In fact, if I close both of these and say I want to get info on these four files here and use Command i it is going to open four different windows. One for each file. That's the way the standard Get Info Window works. 
But there are two other variations of this window. These are more useful when you're dealing with multiple files or just wanted to get info on various files without having to open up an Info Window, Close it, select another file, Open again, Close, and so on. So the first variation I want to show you is if you go to File, Get Info but this time you hold down the Control Key. You can see Get Info changes to Get Summary Info. The keyboard shortcut, since I'm holding down the Control Key, is Control Command i. Now if I select that with four files selected it will show multiple item info here at the top. How many items there are and the total amount of space they're using. Then all of the sections here will show you only combined information. So, for instance, the combined  size. This is a handy way to find out how much space a group of files takes up. But other than that it works just like a regular Get Info Window. The is a regular window here. It will go behind another window if I select it. If I select some other files here this stays the same. Showing the info for those four items that were selected before. 
So, here's the third variation on the Get Info Window. If I go to File, Get Info but this time hold down the Option Key you can see it changes to Show Inspector with the keyboard shortcut Option Command i. Now when I bring this up, at first it doesn't seem any different than the Get Info Window. It shows the same title up here although you may notice that the title area is smaller. Then it shows the same info below that, Tags, all of these different sections are the same. It all just appears basically be the same thing as the Get Info Window. But there are two important differences. One is this floats on top. If I were to select this window here notice how when I drag it this Info Window or the Inspector Window remains on top of the Finder window. It's a floating window. So that kind of makes it easier to always have that on top as, say, you move windows around like this. But the other, very important difference, is that what this shows will change depending upon what I have selected. So here I have selected this image here. If I go to select this image instead notice it changes. It doesn't still show the information from that original file selection. So now I see the information for this file that's selected. In fact, you only have one Inspector Window. You can't open a second one because just a single window that will change to show you whatever it is you've got selected and all of the information for that. In addition, if I were to select multiple files, and I'll do that by selecting one file and then Command clicking another file, you could see it changes to show me the summary info. So now it says two items here and show me the total and summarizes the information. I can select a third file as well. Now it says three items. I can even select folders. If I select this folder it will show me the total there and I can select more folders and you can see it adds it up. It counts each folder as one item. So it's not actually showing me the items inside of each one. But, if I look under Size here in general it shows me the total size and that there are, in fact, 41 items in these 4 folders. 
So actually this Inspector is usually more useful. Rarely are we trying to get info on maybe different files at the same time, like that. Usually we just want one file, like that, and then when we want another file we close this one, select another file, and Get Info on that. But with the Inspector, holding down the Option Key and using Option Command i, I get this file here and then I get whatever file it is I have selected. Plus, since it remains on top it's not always going to jump behind every time I try to use something in a Finder Window. In fact it is easy to keep this window open as kind of a Preview area especially if you're looking at images. So I've got the Preview here turned On and now I can go through and perhaps use this as a way to see what image it is that I have selected. It's a little more permanent than using Quick Look which will pop-up when you use the Spacebar and go away and usually you have to get rid of it in order to see what's behind it and it's more movable than using View, Show Preview which will show a Preview here with some information, but it's attached to the Finder window. It's always on the right side. This you could move around and put somewhere else if you need. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 10 Responses to “The Three Different Types of Get Info Window in the Mac Finder”

Robert B.

1 year ago

Very helpful, Gary. I happened on the Inspector once but did not know its complete functionality until your video and was just opening and closing it like the regular Get Info window.

Eric

Very useful. I knew about Get Info for individual items and Get Summary Info for multiple items but I had not been aware of the Show Inspector option. Thanks Gary.

Alex Rodriguez

I am new to the Mac world, after using Windows for many years, I started right after Al Gore invented the Internet, anyway videos like this help me a lot to understand the Mac OS, which by the way, I found it more interesting than Windows because is Unix based, and I am familiar with Unix. Thanks a lot, I very much appreciate it, it is very clearly explained. Love it!

nick

Hey Gary, this may be more related to an app question, then Get Info...when someone sends me a photo and I import it into Photos, sometimes it's difficult to find it. I realized that before saving it, if I show Get Info then it shows the date when the file was created, so it gets filed under that date, not necessarily as the most recent file . I use Smart Folders in Photos and Finder now so I can use the Date Created as a way to find those files. Appreciate any suggestions on this, thx.

Bart Pulverman

Thank you Gerry,

I wish you had presented this four or five years ago. It would have saved me dozens of hours!

Gary Rosenzweig

Bart: In the left sidebar, go to Imports and you can see it as the most recent import.

brad

Cute doggie!
MacMost is a great place to get info.

Dave Taenzer

Thank you very much. Very helpful

Carlos Ramos-Mattei

I have used "Get Info" feature on hundreds of files that I migrated to my drive from an older drive and had to change permissions individually. I expected to find how to batch process file permissions in this situation. Otherwise, great presentation, as usual!

Carlos: If you use the versions of the Info window that I show that allow you to have multiple selections, then you can change the permissions for those files in that window just like any other aspect of the files that is changeable. Try it and see.

Comments Closed.

The Three Different Types of Get Info Window in the Mac Finder

Comments: 10 Responses to “The Three Different Types of Get Info Window in the Mac Finder”

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