Make the Finder work your way

We all spend lots 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 Cmd+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, you can just 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 actually stored.