Finder on macOS is one of the best tools in any operating system for finding and managing your files. It’s been the foundation of Apple’s desktop operating systems for decades and only improves with each release. Browsing through the Finder via folders and sidebar shortcuts is easy enough, but there are even productivity features you might not know about.
Many of Finder’s best, most powerful features are hidden by default. Here are a few of them and how you can get them to get the most out of Finder.
Enable Path Bar, Status Bar and Preview
Try enabling these three separate features in Finder. Unless you’re a fan of excessive toolbars and clutter, you don’t always need to enable them all, but just one can help you significantly while browsing.
With Finder as the active window, opinion in the menu bar. click Show Path Bar first.
The Path Bar lets you see the path of any file you choose in the Finder, so you know exactly where it is and how to get there next time. Click on any file to see the hierarchy of drives, folders and subfolders to its location. This feature is especially useful if you’re browsing All My Files with scattered files everywhere. If you double-click a folder in the Path Bar it will also take you back to that location.
click Show status bar in the View menu. This does nothing more than show which files are selected, but provides a nice slider to make the icons larger. If you want better previews without opening files, adjusting this slider as needed can help.
Finally, Preview will fix this issue as well. click Show Preview On the View menu to introduce a new sidebar. Click on any item and you will get an enlarged preview along with some basic information about the file type and size. You can also add tags for sorting. More on these in a moment.
Add Custom Tools to Your Toolbar
Path is a simplified version of the aforementioned Path Bar.
You probably already know that you can customize the toolbar in the Finder with a control click. For our purposes, we will focus on two tools that are disabled by default. Control-click and select Customize Toolbar… you will want to drag to view the options Path button and labels button on your toolbar.
Path is a simplified version of the aforementioned Path Bar. If you don’t want to take up valuable screen real estate with a horizontal bar, disable the Pathbar and use the Path toolbar icon instead. It provides the same functionality but in a dense dropdown menu.
Tags is a powerful sorting feature that lets you categorize files in different folders and locations in a group. Apple’s default labels are just colors, but you can give them any name you want. For example, if you’re creating a business presentation, you might have a “presentation” tag that includes some images from your Pictures folder, PDFs from your documents, and a video from Movies. Access your tags from the left sidebar of the Finder. The Tags toolbar button allows you to quickly apply tags to any selected file.
Change Finder’s Settings
One last important customization tip: enable display options. You guessed it opinion menu again: click Show View Options below. This customization box is a rarely accepted macOS gem. Editing lets you do a lot of customization about the Finder, including icon size, grid spacing, text size, label positions, item info, and preview.
Feel free to play around with these settings to make the Finder as familiar as possible in your context. I recommend mark Show item information To view file sizes and image sizes below files.
As a result, Apple isn’t always known for providing customization options to its users, but Finder is a notable exception. Experiment with these tools and toolbars. Completely transform the look and feel of the Finder to turn it into a productivity powerhouse.
ALSO READ: How to Add Power Properties to Finder on Mac Using XtraFinder
