> Be smarter about managing your files

1 Move files quickly

Drag files over a folder and it’ll pop open soon after. Repeat till you reach the intended destination, then let go. You can adjust the opening delay in System Prefs’ Accessibility pane, in Mouse & Trackpad. Or, press the spacebar to open instantly.

2 document locations

Put the pointer over a document’s name in its window’s title bar. Click the arrow that appears and you’ll see the document’s location displayed in the Where pop–up menu; select an alternative location from that menu to move the doc.

3 Sm art Folders

In Finder, choose File > New Smart Folder, and use the + button and the pop–up menus to set criteria for your search. Save this folder to the sidebar and you have one–click access to a dynamic folder for documents that meet your selected criteria.

4 The four views

Finder has four distinct views: Icon, List, Column, and Gallery. Try them and learn the benefits of each — such as rapidly drilling down through folders in Column view. Also, you can quickly switch views by using Cmd and keys 1 through to 4.

5 View options

When viewing a folder in a Finder window, choose View > View Options to adjust how that folder is displayed. For example, you can change how the items within are sorted, the size of icons, and which columns are shown in List view.

6 Preview pane stats

Assuming Finder’s preview pane is shown (View > Show Preview), you will see info about the selected file’s contents and attributes. This is particularly useful for photographers to see image metadata, like dimensions and ISO speed.

7 Quick actions

Contextual actions at the foot of the preview pane enable certain changes to docs without opening an app. You can rotate images, trim videos, and create a PDF of a file. Pick actions to be shown in System Prefs > Extensions > Finder.

8 Add tags

Ctrl–click any file and you can add tags to it. Apple offers color–based ones by default, but you can create your own label/ color combos. Tags are useful for visually marking items for attention, and to pull related files into Smart Folders.

9 Free up space

If your Mac’s getting full, choose Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage > Manage. In the window that appears, you’ll see Macos’s recommendations for ways you can recover space. Do back up important content to an external drive first, though.