Play music files immediately in the Finder with Quick Look
Oct 5, 2010 - 7 Comments
You can play any song or audio file directly within the Finder by using Quick Look. Just select the audio file and then hit the Spacebar or Command+Y to bring up Quick Look and start playing the song. You can also scrub around within the song which makes it a great way to see if you like a new song that you just downloaded from a music blog or elsewhere.
I mentioned this briefly when describing a problem when iTunes won’t play a song but it would play in Quick Look, and realized that many people might now know that Quick Look can play songs too. This is a great feature of Mac OS X, so start using it!
Also pictures, videos, documents even Mac Numbers docs. Also once quick look is activated it will show the next item selected in finder.
It is not a tips…
man this suck it’s even not a tip
i think everyone who using a mac will knowing about this –”
c’mon…it’s really basic
The trouble is that the implementation is half-baked, because if you try to switch to another application the audio stops playing. Ubuntu Linux has pretty much the same feature (use spacebar to start playing) BUT you can then tab to other programs and continue listening. The Mac offers all these “wonderful” features but in this case as so many others, it seems like the designers stopped once they got the feature barely working. Finder is a particular piece of crap (at least in Leopard) – for one thing just about EVERY other operating system sorts folders (directories) to the top of the list, then puts files underneath, while Finder just mixes them all up. again, it’s as if they got it barely working and then just up and quit.
Switching from the quick look to somewhere else break the play but you can play simply in finder window and also if you change window the song still play
Thank you,just been browsing for an app that would do this.Thanks again.
NEVER getting is partially right. The OSX Finder is much less powerful and flexible than it could be. It’s like Apple is scared of making too many changes as it could force people to have to learn something new.
Anyway, if he cares to invest a little more, he’ll find PathFinder and TotalFinder (disclosure- I just bought it) which address some issues.
Also, as I posted on another comment, QuickLook *used* to keep playing, but Apple changed the rules. You can play stuff in the Finder by doing a Get Info on the audio file, and playing from the preview there.