15 Tips For Using List View In the Mac Finder

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com.

So List View in the Finder is probably the

view with the most functionality.

You can get to List View by either clicking

here on this button which will change to List

View or to go into View, As List.

List View gives you not only the names of

the files but also other information about

each one.

For instance here you can see the Date Modified,

the Size, and the Kind of each file.

List View also allows you to easily sort the

files in a variety of different ways.

Basically you can use the Column Title to

sort them.

In this case they are already sorted by Name

in ascending order.

You can see here this little mark, an arrow

pointing up, tells you it's using this column

name and doing it in ascending order.

If I wanted to sort by Date Modified all I

need to do is click the Date Modified Title

and you can see the arrow moves there.

Now they're sorted by Date Modified in ascending

order.

You can always reverse the order of the sort

by clicking again and you can see that arrow

now is pointing down.

Now we have the most recent files first.

The same thing here with Name.

We click that once and we're in alphabetical

order starting with A. But if we click again

you can see now it reverses the order and

goes from Z to A.

Now you can Resize any of these columns by

clicking and dragging the line between the

titles.

You can see that the cursor changes there.

I can click and drag to the left or the right

to resize the column.

Notice if you do that with columns that have

dates in them the format of the date will

change.

So as I shrink this you can see it goes to

a smaller format and when I enlarge it, it

goes to a larger format spelling out the whole

month.

You could also double click on any of these

little lines to right size the column.

In other words it will match the longest piece

of text there.

So it was able to shrink this Name column

because it there was excess space.

If I was to shrink this column too much you

can see the names are shortened.

I could move the cursor over one and I could

see the file name here.

But I could just double click and it will

right size it again larger to fit the longest

name there.

Now you can add many more columns than just

these four.

There are two ways to do that.

A really simple way is to Control click on

any of these titles here.

Just hold the Control key down and click and

you get this little list here.

You can see the checkmarks next to the columns

that are there.

By default Name is always there as a column

but I have these three additional columns

here.

I could add a new one, like let's add Date

Created, and now you could see I have that

new column there.

I could Control click and remove Date Created

just as easily.

You could also go to View, and Show View Options

or just Command J. Here you'll see a list

of all of the different columns and you could

check or uncheck each one.

Now you could also rearrange the columns.

If you want Size to be to the left of Date

Modified just click and drag and you can move

that column around.

You can't put anything to the left of the

Name column but you could move the rest of

the columns to be in any order you want.

Now when we look to the View options there

with Command J we saw that there's also two

sizing options.

You can change the size of the text to make

it larger or even go smaller.

You also have two choices in Icon size.

So you can make the icon a little bit bigger

to make it easier to see some of the picture

icons there.

Now if you're sorting by size one of the things

that you may notice is that folders don't

have size.

They just have two dashes.

But if you want to include Folders in that

sort you need to enable Calculate All Sizes

here in the View options.

When you do that the Folder sizes will be

shown as well.

Now it's pretty quick here if there's not

too much in these folders.

But if the folders have lots of files in them

it may take several seconds or even minutes

for all of the folder sizes to be filled in

and complete.

Now you may also notice here under dates you

get dates like yesterday.

If you would rather not see those you can

turn off Use relative dates.

It actually switches showing dates for everything

rather than using labels like Today or Yesterday.

Now if you want to dig down into Folders using

List View there's really interesting functionality.

You have these little reveal triangles here

to the left of any folder.

If you click on one it expands to show you

the files in there.

You can view the files in this folder as well

as all of the rest of the files at this level.

You can expand as many of these folders as

you want.

Notice it does it with an animation.

You can see the expansion.

That could actually take a little while if

you have a longer folder.

You can shorten that time by holding the Option

key.

Watch what happens when I do it normally.

Watch what happens when I do it holding the

Option key down.

Now you can also open folders using the keyboard.

So if I click and select this folder I can

use the Up and Down arrows to navigate up

and down on the list.

But if I use the Right arrow it expands the

folder.

The Left arrow will shrink it back into the

folder.

The cool thing about that is you can do it

with multiple folders.

So I can use the Command key here and click

this folder.

Now I have two folders selected.

If I use the right arrow key both of those

folders open up.

The left arrow both of those folders will

close.

Now if I do Command A it selects everything.

If I do right arrow it will expand all of

those folders.

You can see I still have just the folders

selected that are at the top level.

Now notice there are some other folders here.

If I do Command A again now it selects everything

that is visible.

The right arrow will expand any folders that

are there.

I can use the left arrow and everything shrinks

back.

So you can navigate around here with the keyboard.

So I can move up and down.

I can move right to go into a folder.

I can move down through there.

I can use Copy and Paste or Copy and Move

to move a file.

So, for instance, I can go in here and say

I want to move this file.

I'll do Command C to Copy.

Nothing happens right away.

I can go up here Left arrow to close that.

Go down to this folder.

Right arrow to open this.

If I do Command V it will paste a copy in

here.

You can see here Command V, paste item.

But if I hold the Option key down you can

see Option Command V is move item here.

So Option Command V and that item moves into

that folder.

So you can navigate around and move files

using just the keyboard.

You can also use Command Z to Undo a move

like that.

Now you can also do that using the Mouse in

spring loaded folders.

So if I open this folder up here and I grab

a file like this and I move it over images

and I wait Images will open up.

I'll go down into it and drop that file into

there.

You can see now it has taken me down into

that folder.

If you want to get up out of it you can use

Command Up arrow and you go back up a level.

You can use Grouping here instead of Sorting

just everything alphabetically together.

So you can go to View, and Use Groups.

When I do that you can see View, Sort By changes

to View, Group By.

I can change to group.

So I have Kind here but I can also do Date

Last Opened.

Now you can see it puts them all in groups.

You can also Click here and change the grouping

as well.

Another type of grouping is to have Folders

on top all the time.

So in order to do that you have to set the

grouping to None and you have to be sorted

by Name.

Then you can go into Finder Preferences and

Keep Folders On Top in Windows when sorting

by Name.

All of the Folders will be at the top before

all of the files.

Now in Column View you usually see a preview

of the file that's selected on the right.

You can do that in List View as well although

it's not on by default.

If you go to View and you use Show Preview

you get that same Preview area here to the

right.

So you still have all the functionality here

of List View but with the Preview area that

includes extra information about the file

and also Finder Quick Actions.

I could see an image.

I could see PDF.

I could see text files.

All sorts of things.

Now here's a really bizarre trick.

You can Control click here I showed you to

select different columns that could appear.

But there are special hidden columns you could

bring up.

In order to do that you have to have the folder

named a certain thing.

For this folder of images let's change the

name, I'm just going to Return and change

the name.

Change it to Pictures.

That's a special name.

Now when I go into this folder here I see

it in List View and if I Control click here

in addition to all the standard columns I

could add Dimensions and Resolution.

You could see those appear here on the right.

Let's shrink down the Name column so we can

see them all together.

You could see the Dimensions and Resolutions

of these images.

You could even sort by them.

So that only works if the folder happens to

have the exact name Pictures.

So if you're creating a project folder and

you're putting a bunch of images into a folder

inside of that you might want to think about

naming it Pictures just to use this functionality.

Or name it whatever you want, like I had it

as Images, but simply change the name to Pictures

in order to see these extra columns.

Then when you go back into it, even though

you've changed the name, you'll see Dimensions

and Resolution stay there as columns.

Now if you rename a folder Movies that's also

a special name.

When I go into that if I Control click I see,

in addition to the normal columns, Dimensions,

Duration, Title, and Codex.

So I can add these columns to folders that

are named Movies.

Now one last thing I want to show you is that

when you go to Open and Save dialogue boxes

inside of apps, in this case I'm in Pages

here, and I'm going to open a new file.

By default you're going to see Column View.

But you can click here and go to List View

and then you've got List View here including

the ability to Sort and Control click and

add and remove columns inside of Open and

Save dialogues in apps on your Mac.

So even if you prefer to use Column View or

Icon View as your main view it's worthwhile

to learn how to use List View because it has

a lot of utility being able to see things

like dates, sizes, kinds of files, all here

in the list and then easily sort by anyone

of those that helps you organize and work

with your folders and files.

Also whenever you do a Find, so I'm going

to search here for something, you're going

to get a List View as the result here.

So knowing how to control the columns and

sorting is important.