10 Finder Toolbar Hidden Features and Tips

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here's some tips for using the Toolbar in Finder Windows. 

So the Toolbar in the Finder is this area here at the top and it features the name of the current folder that you're looking at and a series of different buttons. The first tip I want to show you involves that Name. It seems to be just the name of the current folder. For instance if I dive down into this folder you can see it changes to that name there. If I go back you can see I'm back there. So it tells you where you are currently located. But it is also functional. If you go up to it and if you Control Click it, right click it, two-finger click on the trackpad, or even us the Command Key and click it you get a little Menu. The Menu shows you the full path to the location. So in this case I'm in the Documents folder which is in iCloud Drive. But if I dive down, say, into this folder here and then I dive down into this folder and then this folder, if I Control Click, Right Click, two-finger click or Command Click on the title here you can see I get the full path up to the top. I also can use this as a venue to jump to any of these locations. So if I want to jump up to Documents I can simply select Documents here and it goes all the way up to that level. 

Now the Toolbar itself doesn't need to look like a bunch of buttons. If you Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on a blank area, like right here, you'll see the Context Menu gives you several options. You can do Icon & Text, Icon Only, or Text Only. If I switch to Text Only you can see I get Text descriptions of each of the buttons, no icons. If I switch to Icon & Text I get both the icon and the text and it takes up a little bit more space. The default is Icon Only. If you're new to that you may want to switch to Icon & Text for a while until you're familiar with the buttons and then go to Icon Only to save some space. 

Now you may have noticed when I move the pointer to the title here where it shows the current location, in this case the Documents folder, after a second a little icon appears to the left. This is called a Proxy Icon and you can use this to Drag & Drop the current location somewhere else. So, for instance, if I were to go into this folder here I don't have any way to say move this folder somewhere else. Maybe I have a second Finder window open and I want to put this folder into another folder here. Well, I can do that by waiting for that little Proxy Icon to appear. Click and drag that Proxy Icon and it's like I'm at a level higher and dragging that folder somewhere. So I can drag it to another window and drop it into another folder, for instance. 

There's actually a Setting under System Settings and if you go into Accessibility and then to Display right here for Show Window Title Icons, if you turn that On you'll notice the Proxy Icon is always there. You don't have to hover over the title for it to appear. 

Now maybe the most frequently asked question I get asked about the Toolbar is about this button here. It's actually a set of four buttons denoting different modes of the Finder. You've got Icon View, you've got List View, you've got Column View, and you've got Gallery View. However the question gets asked if somebody doesn't see this button but sees something else. When the window it too small and there's not enough room that four mode button changes to this single button here which gives you that menu. So, if you see this it simply means that you don't have enough horizontal space to display the four modes. If you expand the window more you can see it changes automatically to be this kind of control

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Now another thing most people misunderstand is that one here. This is the Back Button and there is also a Forward Button. So for instance if I were to use the Back Button to go to the previous folder then the Forward Button gets active and I can go forward again. Just like using back and forward in the web browser. However people often equate the back button to going up and that's because a lot of times it does. For instance, if I were to start here at this level and dive down into this folder here and then down into this folder here and then into this folder here notice this is where I'm at. iCloud Drive, Documents, Projects, Project Alpha, some file. So I can use the back button to actually go back up each individual level. It seems to work the same as it is going up a level. However, that's not always the case. If I were to do that again and go in here and into here and into here and then maybe switch to different folder and then maybe  another folder and then in here and go down into this folder and then jump up to this folder, then the Back Button will actually reverse that process. It doesn't go up to what's above this folder here. It simply goes back to the previous folder. So in other words the Back Button is kind of like a history of where you've been. In fact you can view this history. You can't do it the way you think, say, by Control clicking on this or Command clicking on this, or even two-finger or right clicking on it. This just brings up the Toolbar Context Menu. But if you click and Hold then you get this list that is like a little history, just like a browser history, showing you everywhere you've been since you opened this window or Tab, if you've got multiple tabs open. So I can jump back to any previous location even showing the same location more than once, even the order where I've visited them.

Now I can't talk about the Toolbar without mentioning that you can customize the Toolbar. You may have noticed that when I Control Click, two-finger click, or right click up here not only do I have these three options but I can Customize Toolbar. This is also under View and you've got Customize Toolbar there. Either way takes you into this special mode. The Toolbar kind of wiggles now. You see everything moving indicating that you can change it. Then you've got all of these buttons here. You can drag anyone of these up. So, for instance, if I wanted a button in the Toolbar for creating a new folder I can add it just by dragging it. If I wanted one for deleting the current selection I can add that as well. You can also add spaces, like that, or a flexible space that will adjust according to the amount of space available in the Toolbar. You can play around and experiment with these. You can also drag things to be in a different order. So you can move things around if you want. The more important things to the right or to the left and so on. 

There's nothing in here that you can't access through the Menus. But if you're the type of user that uses your mouse or trackpad more than the keyboard then you may want to have buttons up here that you want to click. If you ever want to reset this to be the default toolbar then look down here at the bottom. This is one large control that you can drag up and place in the toolbar and it will reset everything to the default. Note you can do some of these things even without the customized toolbar interface up. For instance you can hold the Command Key down and you can drag these elements to reorder them. You can also remove them by dragging them away. 

You can also add Files, Folders, and apps to the Toolbar. The way to do that is to use the Command Key. So, for instance, let's say I go in here and I want this file to be easily accessible everywhere. I can drag it into the Toolbar. The trick is to hold the Command Key down first. You can't start dragging and then hold the Command Key. The Command Key has to be held down first and then you can drag. You can place this in the Toolbar. You get a little icon, the default icon for whatever app it is that opens that file. Now you can click on this and it will open that file. That's all that's done. So it's quick access to that file. You can do the same thing by adding it in the Favorites in the sidebar here on the left or placing it on the right side of the Dock. There's lots of way to do it. The toolbar is just one more. To get rid of any custom icon you put up here, like this, just hold the Command Key down and drag it away. 

Now what is more interesting is when you put a folder up here. So I'm going to take this folder here. I'm going to hold the Command Key down first. Then drag and put the folder up here. Now, as you can imagine, when I click this folder it jumps right to that location. It will jump to it no matter where you're starting at. So that's convenient. But it also works as a Drop Zone. So I can take a file from anywhere, drag onto this, and this works to move the file there. Wherever you're starting from. You can also add apps here. I'm going to the Applications folder. So I have all my applications here. So let's add, say, Pixelmator Pro here by holding the Command Key, dragging and placing Pixelmator Pro here. Now it works and does two things just like the folder does. One is I can click it and it will launch the app. The other is even without the app running I can Drag & Drop to it. So I can drag, like, this picture here, drop it on there. It will launch that app and open the file.

Now one of the main things you do here with the Toolbar is you use it to drag the window to reposition it. So I click and drag and drag the window anywhere I want. Now normally you need to click and drag on the mouse or trackpad. But there are some options that you've got in Accessibility. So go to System Settings and then Accessibility and then go down to the Motor Section to Pointer Control. Then look for Trackpad Options. So under Trackpad Options you've got Use Trackpad for Dragging. If that is Off then dragging works as normal. But with On you've got a few options here. But what people really like here, what they really use this for, is the Three Finger Drag. So, now dragging works as normal just as it does with any of these modes. But you take three fingers on your trackpad and you can drag the window around without having to do a hard tap or tapping twice or anything. Even though this is a Toolbar Tip this works with anything. Like you can drag, say, this one file here with three fingers on a trackpad like that. 

Here's another tip that has to do with moving Finder Windows around. Of course you have to use the Toolbar here to drag the window. But if you want to drag a window that's behind one, like this, you do it and it brings the window to the front. You don't want to bring the window to the front. You just want to reposition it. Hold the Command Key down and then start dragging. You'll see it doesn't bring the window to the front. You're using the Toolbar to drag but the Command Key is telling it not to bring it to the front as well. 

So I hope you found these tips for using the Finder Toolbar useful. Thanks for watching.