10/24/19
8:00 am

21 Actually Useful Finder Tips And Tricks

Learn some useful everyday tips, tricks and techniques to make it easier to manage your files and folders in the macOS Catalina Finder. See how you can use things like Undo, Copy and Paste, the Path Bar, keyboard shortcuts and more to navigate around in the Finder and work with your files.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's learn some new Finder tips, tricks, and techniques that you can use everyday.
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So let's jump right into it. You probably already know how to create a new folder. You go to File, New Folder. Once you have a new folder you can move items into it. But you could also select multiple items. I'm going to hold the Command key down to select multiple files here and then you can go to File, New Folder with Selection. That will create a new folder and instantly move all of the selected files into that folder.
If you want to get information about a file you can select it and use Command i or File, Get Info to open up a window for that file. But if you want to get info on another file you have to select that file and use Command i again there. You'll actually end up with multiple info windows open. One for each file. But you can also use an Inspector. An Inspector will change depending upon what file you have selected. So that's the same menu item but instead of Get Info you hold the Option key down and it changes to Show Inspector. So Option, Command i. So with a file selected you do Option, Command i and it looks like the Get Info window except that it has a smaller bar at the top letting you know it's a pallet window that will remain on top and stay there. So now I can select a different file and you can see it changes to show information about that file.
Now if you want to get the full path to a file you can do it one of three ways. One way to do it is to hold the Command key down and click on the window title here and that will give you a list going all the way up to the top level. You can also go to View and then Show Path Bar and then see the path at the bottom of the window. You can also go to View and Customize Toolbar. Then drag and drop the Path button into the Toolbar like that. Then you can click there and get a list going all the way up.
Now let's say you want to navigate up a level. You can use this Path button here. You can Command click on the title there and select something there. Or you can double click on any item you see here in the Path Bar. But an easier way to go up one level is to use Command Up arrow which is go Enclosing Folder. So Command Up takes you up a level.
Now I showed you the Path Bar. There's another Bar at the bottom as well. You can turn that on with Show Status Bar. This will give you information like how many items are selected, how many items are in the current folder that you're viewing, and the amount of space available on your drive. In addition you get a handy little slider there that will allow you to change the size of the icons in the current view. This only works in Icon View so you see it goes away if I go to List View or Column View.
Now when you create a new Finder window with Command N or File, New Finder Window it will go to a certain location. You can set that by going to Finder Preferences and there under General you have New Finder Window, Show and you can choose all these different folders and even Other and choose any folder that you want to be the Default location for a New Finder Window.
When in List View notice that folders and files are intermingled depending upon how you have things sorted. Here I'm sorting by Name. You can tell because the little arrow is there in the Name column. But if you go to Finder Preferences and then go to Advanced you can change it so that folders are kept on top but only when sorting by name. So select that and now see that these folders are here on top. If I change it to sorting by something else like Date Modified you can see that's no longer the case. Also in Column View you see it puts the folders there at the top as well because Column View is always sorted by Name.
Now one problem in Column View is sometimes the columns aren't wide enough to fit files with longer names. Sometimes they're too wide and there's a lot of blank space there. You can drag the line between columns to adjust it. But if you click on the line it will snap to be the perfect size. If you hold the Option key down and double click on any of the line it will do it for all of the columns at once. Now this also works in List View. If I go to List View notice how much space here I have for the name column. So I could adjust by dragging the line here at the top. But also I can double click it and it will then snap to the perfect size for that column. While we're here in List View you can add more columns to this by going to View, Show View Options. You're going to get Show Columns here and you can add all sorts of different columns like different dates, versions, all sorts of different things that can be included there so you can customize this to have the exact columns that you want.
Notice too that you can adjust the icon size here so I can make it a larger icon. I can adjust the text size as well. You can do that in all the different views. So I could go to the Icon View and adjust icon size there and text size there as well. The same thing for Column View. I can adjust the text size there to make it larger text in Column View.
Now everybody knows how to use Undo. When you're working in a word processor, for instance, you delete some text and then use Undo to get the text back. But Undo works in the Finder as well for all sorts of different actions. So for instance say I take this file and I move it into this folder. I can now go to Edit, Undo or Command Z and it will come back here to this level. I can do the same thing with renaming a file. I can Rename it and decide that was a mistake. I can do Command Z and undo the rename. Even deleting a file I can select it and drag it to the Trash or Command Delete to throw it away. I can do Edit, Undo to get it back.
Now the Trash also has an Undo built into it. If I go to the Trash here and I look at what I have in the trash I can select a file and then go to File and then Put Back. Put Back will actually return the file to wherever it was when I deleted it. So I don't have to remember the exact location and drag it out of the trash to that. I can just use Put Back to get the file back to where it was originally and out of the trash.
If you want to Duplicate or move files around you can certainly do that with dragging and dropping. But you can also use Copy and Paste.  Select a file like this and you could do Edit, Copy or Command C. Then you can go to another location here, go into that location, and then do Edit, Paste Item and that will make a copy of it here. If I hold down the Option key then Paste changes to Move Item Here. So Command V will paste a copy of it and Option Command V will actually move the original item to the new location.
I already showed you an example of customizing the toolbar but another way you can customize the toolbar is by adding files, folders, or even apps to the toolbar. So, for instance, if I wanted to add this file to the toolbar I could hold the Command key down and drag it up here and you can see a Plus button appears. If I put the file there I can open the file now by clicking on it in the toolbar. I can Command drag and bring it all the way down to remove it. I could do the same thing with a folder. I can Command drag the folder up there. Now I can drag things into the folder or click on the folder once to actually go to that location. You can also add applications to the toolbar. Just go in Applications to see all your Applications. Then pick an app that you want to use to open files with. So, for instance, I can pick BBEdit. I hold the Command key and drag it to the top and now it's in there. I can open that file by dragging to that icon in the toolbar.
A lot of times things get messy. We have different windows with the Finder on it here. We can merge all those into Tabs by going to Window, Merge All Windows. This puts all of the open Finder windows into different Tabs. So it's a good way to clean things up without closing Finder windows. Now if you have a messy folder like this one you can do a one time cleanup by using the View and Clean Up or Clean Up By. Then you can choose how you want it to cleanup. So I can do by Name and it's going to clean it all up, put them all in order one after the other, in the grid all sorted by name. I also could choose Sort By and then choose name and it will keep things sorted. So for instance if I were to change this file name here you could see it's going to move everything around to keep everything in alphabetical order. But remember to go back to Sort By None if you want to then arrange things anyway that you want.
Now you probably know if you go to Column View you get a Preview window here on the right. So anything you select is then going to be Previewed there. But you can get that in other views as well. For instance I can go to List View here and go to View and then select Show Preview. Now you can see that same preview there on the right. I can do the same thing even in Icon View. You can see it appears there. You can toggle that On and Off with View, Show or Hide Preview.
If you're looking at things in List View you'llnotice that a typical column to have is Size. Size only shows for files. For folders you don't see a size. You can turn that on by going to View and then Show View Options. Then there's a checkbox for Calculate All Sizes. Once you turn that on then you see all the sizes for folders. When you Sort By Size it will put the folders properly in their place according to size.
Now let's say you've added a bunch of items to the Trash but you want to review them first before emptying the Trash. However there's a file that you really want to delete right now. You can skip the Trash by selecting a file and then going to File, and you'll see here where it is Move to Trash or Command Delete key. But if you hold the Option key down that changes to Delete Immediately. Option Command Delete will delete that file immediately, skipping the Trash, and leaving all the files that are currently in the trash right where they are.
Now we're always looking for ways to differentiate files and folders from each other. A handy way to do so is to use emoji in file names because you can use any characters you want here. So I have a folder here and certainly I can use regular letters and numbers but I could also use Control Command Space to bring up the Emoji Viewer and add any emoji I want to this folder name. So, for instance, I can search for something that makes sense like a speaker icon here for an audio file and I can add it in. Now it makes it a little bit easier to find that folder. I could do that with all my folders and files if I want.
One last tip here. A lot of us forget that we have items in the trash. We'll throw items away and then we'll plan to go through them later. But the trash ends up filling up and our hard drive runs out of space. You can setup the trash so that when files have been in there for thirty days they're automatically deleted. Go into Finder, Preferences and then go to Advanced. There's an option here to Remove Items from the Trash after 30 Days. This is definitely something I use. It still gives you a safety buffer of 30 days for anything you put into the trash so you can undo any mistakes. But it also means that you don't have to remember to empty the trash.
So I hope you learned a few new ways to use the Finder to manage your files and folders. If you have a favorite Finder trick that I didn't mention share it with everybody below in comments.

Comments: 15 Responses to “21 Actually Useful Finder Tips And Tricks”

George Chapman

5 years ago

This is so funny and I embarrassed to admit it, but It says "Finder". I have only ever used it to "find" a file that got dropped somewhere randomly and I could not "find" it. Like my printer would scan something and drop it into a spot I could never find, so "Finder" was the solution. You have opened my eyes! (Please! No judgment here people!)

Bill

5 years ago

You do a GREAT job and VERY informative, but I find you go too fast, at least for me. I know you have lots of data to go over so likely cant slow it down. Thanks very much.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Bill: I let my enthusiasm show, yes. Plus, this is already the longest MacMost video (of all time?) so it is probably a good thing I didn't go any slower.

Don Palmer

5 years ago

It is amazing how much you covered in less than 12 minutes. The guidance you offer is immeasurable, greatly exceeding the "21"in your title. I will study this video frame-by-frame, trying not to miss a single tip. You have out done yourself again. Many thanks.

Jan Hoyme

5 years ago

Quite a few new tips for me, so thank you. Like Bill, I found the information coming too fast for me and I had to pause the video. Any chance these tips could be available as a PDF?

Tom Abbott

5 years ago

That’s what’s awesome about these videos: they are packed with all kinds of treats and you can pause, backup, and replay as needed to make sure you get as much as you want to get.

Adjusting Video Speed

5 years ago

I also have trouble with video speed in Gary’s video, my old ears don’t hear as fast as they used to. One solution I use when watching Gary’s video is to slow the speed down by clicking on the small gear icon on the bottom right of the video window. There you will see an option to adjust the video speed. Hope this helps others.

Hyacinthe

5 years ago

Thanks, Gary, for another incredibly helpful video. I'm a recent convert from Windows 10. A huge challenge for me in using Finder is the lack of ability to make the narrow left column wider. I have many files with long names or multiple versions of my novel saved by date, but I have to guess which ones I want because the columns are, as far as I know, immovable. Changing the sorting parameters doesn't help, because sometimes I have to find one that I want to edit in the middle of the pack.

Hyacinthe

5 years ago

I just wanted to add - I did not give up! After following your instructions for clicking on the column line nothing happened, but after clicking and clicking, I figured I had to position my cursor close to the very bottom to get it to work to widen the columns. Problem solved. Thanks.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Hyacinthe: Are you using an older version of macOS? That was true on older versions, but with Catalina you should be able to double-click on any part of the line.

Tom

5 years ago

About the speed of the presentation. I too find it fast sometimes especially something I am really interested in since I like to pause the video ant try some of the tips. Pause and go back are invaluable to me. I think Gary is doing a great job.

Jasper

5 years ago

You asked for Finder tips at the end: I find tags really useful. 1 get your tags visible in the side bar. This not only allows you to locate files/folder but allows you to easily tag untagged files/folders by dragging them onto the tag in the side bar, 2. Version control and avoiding duplicate: keep a single file but tag for 2 different projects. 3. “BinSoon” tag files that aren’t worth filing but you’ll need for a few days. 4. “Live” tags projects to get focussed on things that are current.

Hyacinthe

5 years ago

Gary, I'm using Mojave 10.14.6 still. I'm travelling in Asia for a few weeks and didn't want to take the chance that installing Catalina might cause problems beforehand. But the good news is, your tips pointed me in the right direction - again! Thanks.

Fernando Gonçalves

5 years ago

A reminder to all - Often Gary's videos are accompanied by a verbatim script of his comments/presentation.
When I find a particular presentation interesting, I highlight the script, copy it, and paste it on a Page document on my now for consultation and or review at a later date. I often have also save the comment as a .pdf file and send it to my daughters if they need clarification(s). A "win-win" situation.
Thanks for all your work, Gary.

Bill Hamble

5 years ago

Another great video. I have now put the pdf file in the Finder toolbar so I can open it quickly to remind me of the shortcuts. Thank you.

Comments Closed.

21 Actually Useful Finder Tips And Tricks

Comments: 15 Responses to “21 Actually Useful Finder Tips And Tricks”

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