MacMost Now 875: Using the Finder Info Window

You can get and modify information about a file or folder with the Info window. You can also use the Inspector as a way to quickly look at information about any file or folder you select.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode let's look at the Finder's File Info Window.
When you are in the Finder you can select a file and get more info by simply going to File/Get Info. Now usually people don't go to the File window they use the shortcut Command I. So let's do that. Command I. Get that file selected and it brings up the info window here with lots of information about that file.
There are several different sections of information here. For instance at the top you get general information about the file like its size, its name, and the last time it was modified. 
But each one of these sections you can open and close very easily like that and you can see more detailed information. Like the exact size of the file and when it was created as well as when it was modified. 
You can look in the More Info section that will change depending upon the type of file. So this is an image file and it will tell me the dimensions and all sorts of information about the image itself including even what camera was used to take the picture.
Now it is even a little misleading to think of this as a get info window because you can actually change information as well. For instance under Name & Extension here I can go in and edit the file name. So this is just a different way to go in and do that. Of course there are other things you can change here. Like whether the file is locked for instance.
So looking down through the sections there is a lot you can do here. For instance Spotlight Comments you can add tags or keywords so you can search for the file using Spotlight and actually come up with it if it is tagged in Spotlight Comments with something. 
You can go further down and look at a Preview of the file for instance. You can also look at Sharing & Permissions for the file.
Watch what happens if I were to get information on say a text document rather than an image. You can see here under More Info I don't have all that and under Preview I get a preview of the text document itself instead of the image.
You can also set for files what document opens them up with the Open With area there. So it will look into you Applications to see what can handle this type of app and allow you to select one. Or you can jump to the App Store to find different applications that handle this app or set it for anything you want using Other.
Another cool thing you can do is you can select the icon here, see it has that little outline now that I have selected it. I can copy that and paste it into say a graphics program. I can also paste over that, now that I have it selected, if I had another icon or just a graphic from any graphics program. I can paste and replace the icon with a custom icon.
Now what would happen if I selected two files, do Command I, I get two separate windows for them. But if instead I use the Option key, let's select one file and do the Option key. Now look what happens to the file if I hold down the Option key, Get Info changes to Show Inspector. Basically it is the same window. If I open it up you may not notice anything different except the title bar here is a little different.
Now what is interesting about this is if I select different files this will show the info for the file selected and if I select multiple files it will then show the information for those items together. So it allows me to make changes, like change permissions or something, for multiple files. Let me select two images here and now I can select what app opens them up for instance.
So there is some interesting things you can do by using the Inspector window rather than the Get Info window. The Get Info window of course Command I another file and this is still going to show me the file for the original one when I use Command I.
Now the Get Info window also works great for folders. So if select Folder/Command I it will tell me information about the folder. For instance the size of all the items in it and how many items are in it. All sorts of different things like that. So I can do the same thing with an Inspector window here. Do Option/Command I and get an Inspector window and then go to another folder and another folder and look and see what it there. Select multiple items, let's select two folders here and it will tell me there is two folders and the total amount of files and size taken up by everything in those two folders.
What I showed you before about changing the icon you can also do for folder icons which is very useful to be able to make a unique folder icon for a special folder.
So I hope you found this quick look at the Info window useful. Until next time this is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: 2 Responses to “MacMost Now 875: Using the Finder Info Window”

Andrew Collins

12 years ago

New MacPro, interested in the dimensions when they become available, the graphic used in Phil Schillers keynote shows it to be around the height of the on/off button on an existing MacPro. If this is accurate then it's size is truly impressive however other images I've seen make it look much larger.

Gary Rosenzweig

The Apple web site says it will be 9.9 inches tall, 6.6 inches in diameter.

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MacMost Now 875: Using the Finder Info Window

Comments: 2 Responses to “MacMost Now 875: Using the Finder Info Window”

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