Why You Should Use the Inspector Window Instead of Get Info

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you why I may want to use the Finder's Inspector rather than the Finder's Info Window. 

Now when you're using the Finder you may already know about the Info Window. For

instance here I can select a file, like this one, and then I can go to File, and then Get Info, although most people would just use Command i. This brings up this handy little window here which gives you a lot more information than what you'll find in the Icon List or Column View of the Finder. You'll find all sorts of things under General here. For instance the File type, where it is located, its size, the date it was created and last modified. You'll find other information here under More Info and notice you can click on the little Reveal triangle to the left to open and close the sections, like that. You could Rename files here. You can access the Finder Comments for the file. You can access the Tags. All sorts of things. So this is a great little utility inside the Finder to know about. 

However, there is an alternative to it that looks very similar. If I Close this here, and with the same file selected I go to File and then Get Info, BUT I hold down the Option Key on the keyboard. You can see that Get Info changes to Show Inspector. The keyboard shortcut is simply Option Command i. So you don't have to go to File menu at all. Just use Option Command i to bring up the Inspector. But wait a minute. Inspector looks exactly the same as the Info Window. So what is the difference and why would you want to use the Inspector instead of the Info Window?  

Well, here's the main difference. If I were to select a file and use Command i to get Info and then I were to select another file, like this one, you can see the Info Window still shows me the information for the original file that was selected. However, if I were to select this file and use Option Command i to  bring up the Inspector instead then if I switched to another file, like I'll select this one, you can see the Inspector changes to show me what I have currently selected. So I can continue to select different things and this will update to show me the information. I can even select Folders here and it will show me the updated information for those folders. So you can just leave this one Inspector Window open and use it to inspect whatever it is you have selected. Whereas with the Info Window you'd be bringing up one Info Window for one file and then bringing up another Info Window for another file and both of those would be open.

Another use for this is to preview items. So, for instance, I can look in this Images folder here and if I select a file and use Option Command i to bring up the Inspector there's a Preview area right here. I can enlarge that. Let's close off some of these other areas here to make more space. So you see I get a pretty large preview. I can enlarge the window somewhat to make it even larger. So now I can select different images here and see them in the Inspector. The Info window would just keep showing me the preview for the one that was there when I opened the Info Window. 

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So another difference between the Info Window and the Inspector is what happens when you have multiple files selected. So I'm going to select this audio file here and I'm going to select this text file here by holding the Command Key down. So now I have two files selected. If I use Command i for the Info Window it will bring up two separate windows. One for each of these. In fact if you select 50 files and use Command i you'll get 50 of these Info Windows open. However, with those same two open if I use Option Command i to bring up the Inspector I get one Info Window. It combines the information for those files. So here it shows two items and gives you the total size for both of them. So it is the quickest way to get the size of multiple files added together. It will even show you things like the Created and Modified dates as a range here. This will change depending upon what you have selected. So if I select this Numbers file here you can see the Inspector now shows me the one Numbers file. But if I Command click to select this Pages file you can see those two items. If I select another Pages file you can see it's 3 items. 

So if I were to select this Folder it shows me the total for this folder. It's got 20 MB and you can see for 8 items. If I Command click on this folder you can see it's now 129MB for 42 items. The ranges have changed and everything. But you can do more than just view information for these. You can actually use them to change multiple files at once. So, for instance, I can select this file here and this file here and notice how I can add Tags that would apply then to both of those files. 

Another difference is how the windows behave. If I select something, I'll select a folder here and I'll use Command i to bring up the Info Window, notice how this window acts just like a normal window. Another Finder window can be in front of it. But if I bring up the Inspector instead with Option Command i then this window now floats on top. A clue to that is that the Title Bar is smaller her which is traditionally how that's indicated in macOS. If I select this Finder Window here you can see it never appears on top of the Inspector. Plus if I select another app, like I will open Notes here, notice the Inspector Window goes away. It is still there but it is only going to be visible if the Finder is the currently active app. So I switch back to the Finder like that and you can see the Inspector Window is there. If I switch to Notes, the Inspector Window goes away. You only see it if the Finder is the topmost active app.

That's not true of Info Window. If I select this folder here, bring up the Info Window you can see it's still visible even if Notes is the currently active app. 

So this, of course, brings up the topic of what are the advantages of the Info Window over the Inspector. It is kind of the opposite of everything I talked about. So, for instance, if you do want to be able to see this window here, like if you want to monitor this folder as maybe things are added to it, you can have this window up even as you're working in different apps. So if I were to export something to this folder you would see the number of items and the folder size change. It's really handy, for instance, if you bring up the Info Window for the Downloads Folder and then you can monitor the number of files and the size of those files in the Downloads Folder. You can't do that with the Inspector unless you stay in the Finder. 

 It's also handy if you do want to compare multiple things at the same time. So, for instance, I can bring up an Info Window for this folder here and now maybe I can compare things. Like the sizes, the numbers of items, and other things about these two folders. I can see them both at the same time rather than only one at a time or a combination of the two in the Inspector. 

It's handy for an entire drive as well. So I'll use Go and the Computer level and let's say I want to monitor what's going on with this external drive. I'll bring up the Info Window rather than the Inspector. So now I can go into other apps and I can still see what's going on here. How much space is available and used on this external drive as maybe I export things or try to clear space off on this drive. This Window had something I can just put off to the side somewhere and check. 

There's also a third alternative to the Info Window or Inspector. That is the Preview Pane in the Finder. This is tied to the Finder Window. You go to View and then Show Preview or Shift Command P. It brings up a right sidebar here which looks a lot like the Info Window and Inspector. So I'll select this file here and you see I get a preview here. I get some basic information. I can even alter the Tags here. I works a little differently but it is still really useful. For instance if you want to Preview Images you can do that here inside the same Finder Window instead of in a separate window. You can drag the line between the main part of the Finder Window and the Preview area to even enlarge the image. 

So get to know the Inspector Window. It's really handy if you do a lot of work in the Finder. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.