Work smarter within Finder

Discover the many powerful productivity shortcuts in the Mac’s file manager

Select multiple items or a range >>> You can select a sequence of files in two ways: either drag through them, or click the first, hold then click the last one to select them and all between – this is handy if the latter is initially out of sight and you need to scroll down. To select a scattering of files, hold and click each one you want to add to your selection (in any order you want).

Check a folder’s location >>> Turning on the path bar (View > Show Path Bar) shows the current folder’s location across the bottom of its window. Double-click a folder in the bar to jump to it, click to open it in a new window, or drag and drop items onto one to move them there.

Copy and paste or move files >>> The title bar shortcut doesn’t allow for drag and drop, so it can be helpful to memorize an extra keyboard shortcut. Naturally, and and paste items, but you can instead press Alt+ to move files you’ve copied to the Clipboard.

Set the default scope for searches >>> When you type in the search bar, or press Alt+ Spacebar to create a Smart Folder, the window’s options bar lists This Mac, the current folder (or Desktop), and Shared as search locations. In Finder’s Advanced preferences, you can specify whether it should default to either of the first two or your most recent choice from here on in.

Open in a new tab or window >>> When you hold and double-click a folder, it opens in a new tab or window. Which one you get depends on a setting at the bottom of Finder’s General preferences.

Copy the path to an item >>> When you need to point someone to an item on a network drive, you don’t need to type its path. Select a file or folder, then press Alt+ to copy the full path to it to the Clipboard, switch to a messaging app, say, then press to paste the path.

Check location from a title bar >>> You can save space when you’re working on a small display by right-clicking the folder name in a Finder window’s title bar – this is another way to jump to a higher folder.

Spring open a folder >>> When you drag items over a folder (or a tab or window in Finder), it springs open. If the delay in doing so is too long, press Spacebar to instantly open it. You can adjust this in System Preferences.

Quickly focus a Save dialog >>> Saving a file for the first time means digging down to the folder where you want to put it. If that folder is already open in a Finder window, just drag the icon from that window’s title bar onto the Save dialog to switch the dialog to that location.

keyboard shortcuts >>> Finder’s sidebar contains shortcuts to various commonly used folders. Each of the default selection has a keyboard shortcut, listed in the Go menu, that you can use to jump to the corresponding place (in Open and Save, too).

Type folder paths more quickly >>> Finder’s Go to Folder command ( has a great productivity shortcut: type part of a folder name, then press to complete it. If there are multiple matches, this fills in the first one by alphabetical order.

Check iCloud Drive’s progress >>> If files saved to iCloud Drive aren’t soon available on another device, look for an indicator next to Drive in Finder’s sidebar, or press Alt+ and choose View > Show Status Bar for details.

alter the sidebar >>> Sidebar categories can be dragged to reorder them, or hidden by clearing checkboxes in Finder’s prefs.

Arrange and sort >>> The View > Arrange By menu contains options that group files and folders by attribute. You may want to organize files according to the apps used to create them, for example. Open the View menu, hold Alt and you’ll see that Arrange By changes to Sort By, which contains similar options. These allow for sorting items on a secondary attribute within Arrange By’s initial visual groupings.

Adjust columns >>> In Column view, if a column is too narrow to show filenames in full, double-click the divider to its right to extend it to the required width. Hold Alt and doubleclick a divider to snap all columns to their required widths. Alternatively, hold Alt and drag one divider to set all columns to the same width. If these are hard to remember, hold right-click a divider, then pick an option from the contextual menu. Add attributes >>> In the List and Cover Flow views, hold and click a column heading to see a few extra columns you can add, or to turn off any unwanted ones. The Date Added and Modified attributes are helpful in folders such as Downloads, and for the All My Files view that’s automatically provided. Remember, you can click any column heading in these views to sort items based on it, in descending or ascending order.

Preview column >>> Each view can have a column added to its righthand side to preview whatever single file is selected. Choose View > Show Preview Column to switch it on for the current view. This can give you a clue to a file’s contents without having to use Quick Look – you can even scroll through PDFs and some other file types. The column can be resized by dragging the line to its left, and by adjusting the window’s height.

Navigate search suggestions >>> The suggestions shown when you type in the search bar are categorized. Rather than reach for your mouse or trackpad to choose an item lower down the list, use to jump down a category at a time. This also works with Spotlight results.

Set a default view >>> Finder can present the contents of your Mac’s storage in four ways: Icon, List, Column, and Cover Flow views. Switch between them using

through Each view offers a degree of customization: press to change how the current view displays the folder you’re in, now and as a default for the future. To apply your choices to all folders, press “Use as Defaults” at the bottom of that window.

Swi tching views >>> You may want to view one folder in a particular view and deeper ones in another – your Home folder in Icon view and Documents in List view, for instance. To do this, go to the enclosing folder, set its view as you want it, press and put a check mark next to “Always open in,” but not “Browse in.” Next, open a subfolder of that one, set its view as you want, press and clear both of those aforementioned options.

Quick Look >>> Select one or more files, then press the Spacebar to open a Quick Look window, which you can resize. To go straight into a fullscreen slideshow of the items, press Alt+Spacebar. With a multiple selection, the button that shows four squares displays an index sheet, so you can jump straight to another item. If an image doesn’t fill the view, hold Alt to zoom in.

Combined info >>> Pressing opens one Get Info window for each item selected. Press for a combined Get Info. Press Alt+ to open a similar window that summarizes everything that’s selected, but the total here updates as your selection changes. To see size totals in List view, press

and turn on “Calculate all sizes;” this info can take a while to appear, especially on a traditional hard drive.

Smart Folders >>> Smart Folders (File > New Smart Folder) find all files and folders that match criteria. When specifying rules, hold Alt and click an ellipsis (…) button to the right to add a nested group of rules to match against (“Any”) or to exclude results (“None”). To amend a saved Smart Folder, open it, click the cog in the toolbar and pick Show Search Criteria. Click Save to keep changes.

Add tags to a new file >>> When you first save a file, many apps offer a field where you can add tags. Should you neglect to add any, you don’t need to find the file in Finder to do so retrospectively. Just click the open document’s name in the app’s title bar. You can quickly move the file here too, if you saved it to the wrong location.

Tag existing items >>> There are several ways to tag files and folders in Finder. First, you can click an item and choose from seven favorite tags near the bottom of the contextual menu. Those seven can be changed in Finder’s preferences: in the Tags tab, drag one from the top pane onto a position in the Favorite Tags box. In the top pane, click the circle to the left of a tag to assign it a color. Put a check mark to the right of one to pin it to Finder’s sidebar. Click a tag to rename it (which affects files tagged with it), or select it and click the – (minus) button to delete it, which also removes it from files.

Favorite tags >>> You can drag items onto tags in the sidebar to assign them. Alternatively, choose Tags in the contextual menu or click the Edit Tags button in the toolbar, then type one’s name; matches appear as you type, so you may not have to type the whole thing. Select a match using the arrow keys and .

Search on a tag >>> Type a tag name in a Finder window’s search bar and the suggested results will include matches. Select one and the window will show items that carry that tag. More complex criteria based on tags can be constructed by choosing Other as the attribute for a Smart Folder criterion, then by selecting Tags in the list of all available ones.

Turn a tag into a stack >>> Tags are a helpful way to keep track of all the files associated with a project. Often you’ll just click a tag in Finder’s sidebar to see all the files that have it attached, but there’s another way that doesn’t depend on you having a Finder window to hand. Drag a tag from Finder’s sidebar to the right-hand side of the dividing line in the Dock to turn it into a stack, then right-click the stack to set its presentation and sort options.