MAKE THE FINDER WORK YOUR WAY

We all spend a great deal of time in Finder, looking for and working with files. Here’s how to get the most from it

The Finder is the Mac’s file manager. Everything you do with files, whether launching an app, copying, pasting or moving files, or using Quick Look to preview them is done in the Finder.

There are a couple of improvements that have been made to the Finder in recent versions of macOS that are worth making a point of using regularly. The first is tabs. While the Finder still doesn’t have a proper dual-pane interface, tabs go some way towards that. They work in the same way as browser tabs in Safari (and use the same ⌘+T shortcut to create a new one) in that they enable you to open a different view without cluttering your desktop with windows. And you can drag and drop files from one tab to another one.

The other recent feature is Quick Actions. These enable you to perform actions on a file in the Finder. So, for example, you can rotate an image or trim a video. Dig a little deeper by clicking the More (…) button and you can convert an

image to a different format. Dig deeper still by adding extensions in System Preferences and there’s a nifty tool to remove the background from an image.

If there are folders you access regularly, drag them on to the sidebar to make them easier to find as soon as you open a Finder window.

Even better, tag files with meaningful tags and you can click that particular tag in the Finder’s sidebar to view all files that have been assigned with it, regardless of where they are stored.

1 Sidebar Drag folders you access frequently to the sidebar so you can get to them quickly. That way you won’t have to burrow through lots of folders to get to them. 2 Tags Use tags to organise files and folders. When you create a tag, you can add it to the sidebar and when you click on it, all files and folders you have tagged will appear. 3 Views List view is useful for organising files by date or type, Column is good for seeing nested folders and Carousel is great for previewing folders full of images. 4 Quick Look Press the spacebar to invoke Quick Look. From there, you can mark up, share or rotate an image. If you decide that you need to do more, you can open Preview too. 5 Markup tools These tools enable you to rotate an image or access Markup tools without invoking Quick Look. You can also click More to convert an image or remove the background. 6 Show More Click More to see more details on the file that you’ve selected. You can choose what is displayed by default by using Show Preview Options. Click Add Tag to tag files.