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How Do I Make the Preview Move To… More Efficient?

When I use File > Move To… in Preview it presents me with a collapsed Finder window in the dialog and in order to move the file to any folder not in sidebar or the file path above the existing location, I have to expand the dialog, go to the very bottom, and select Other… to get a full Finder window. Is there any way to make the full Finder window the default, or shortcut to the Other.. option? Thank You.

Often downloaded PDF file are automatically saved in the Downloads folder and I open them in Preview before deciding where I should move them to. I would like a single step Move To… that gives me a full Finder window where I can use my Default Folder or recents to efficiently find the destination.
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Gus

Comments: 2 Responses to “How Do I Make the Preview Move To… More Efficient?”

    12 months ago

    There's not much you can do to lessen the number of steps if you are using File, Move To... But there are alternatives to using it.

    First, you could just preview it using Quick Look instead of Preview. So select the file in your Downloads folder, then use the spacebar (or Command+Y) to view it in Quick Look. Then the spacebar closes the Quick Look window. Now you can move it using the Finder to the right folder.

    You can also just enable the preview inside the Finder window. So while viewing the Downloads folder, you can use View, Show Preview. Now you can see a preview on the right side. It will stay like that unless you turn it off. So you can continue to select files in your Downloads folder, see the Preview on the right, and then deal with the files in the Finder.

    You can also simply not download to the Downloads folder. In most cases when you download you can Command+click on the download link and then select a location for the file. This is quicker if you know what the file is at the time of download, which should be all the time, right? Then you skip the Downloads folder completely.

    Dealing with the file back in Preview, note that when you select File, Move To... it also shows your Finder favorites in the list before you get to Other. So maybe add your most common folders to your Finder favorites so you see them there and can avoid using Other and having to browse.

    Here's one more. When viewing a file in Preview and most other apps, you can hover the pointer over the file name at the top of the window. An icon will appear to the left of the name. You can drag that to a Finder window and it will move the file while it is open. So you can have a Finder window open to the destination, and then drag the icon from the top of the Preview window to that Finder window and it performs the move.

    Gus
    12 months ago

    Thanks very much for those workflow suggestions Gary, between them I should be able to avoid the Preview > Move To... most of the time.

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