Customizing the macOS Finder: Tips and Tutorial – Guide
The Finder is a powerful tool that comes with every Mac, represented by the iconic Happy Mac logo on the Dock. This article outlines some of our favorite tips and tricks to help you work more efficiently with files and folders on your Mac.
Enable path bar, status bar and view
Users of the Finder app can benefit from enabling three features, even if they don’t want to have them all activated at once. These features may help streamline browsing and reduce clutter.
To make navigating your Mac easier, open the Finder window and select “Show path bar” from the View menu.
The Path Bar in the Finder lets you quickly locate any file. Simply click on it to view the hierarchy of drives, folders and subfolders leading to its location. This is especially helpful when browsing the All my files section, where files are scattered across multiple locations. Double-clicking a folder in the Path Bar will take you back to that spot.
To get a better view of your files without opening them, enable the status bar on the View menu. This will give you access to a slider that allows you to zoom in and out of icons for improved visibility.
Visualizing files can help solve the problem. Clicking “Show Preview” on the View menu will open a sidebar with enlarged views of each item, along with basic information about type and size. Additionally, users can add tags for classification.
Add specific tools to your toolbar
To customize the Finder toolbar, control-click and select Customize Toolbar. Drag the Path and Tags buttons to enable them.
Path Bar can take up valuable screen space, but users can still access its features with the Path toolbar icon. This icon provides the same functionality as the bar, but in a condensed drop-down menu.
Tags are a powerful way to organize files from different folders and locations. Apple’s standard tags are colors, but you can customize them with any name you choose. For instance, if you’re making a work presentation, you could create a “presentation” tag that includes images from your Images folder, PDFs in your Documents folder and a video in Movies. Access tags in the left sidebar of Finder and use the tag toolbar button to quickly apply them to any selected file.
Adjust Finder settings
Enabling the viewing options on the View menu can help you customize your Finder experience in macOS. This includes organizing, changing icon size, grid spacing, text size, label positions and more. Unlock the potential of this rarely recognized gem to make your Finder truly yours.
Customize the Finder to suit your needs: enable Show item information to view file sizes and image dimensions.
Final note
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