A new contextual menu feature available in the OS X Finder make sending files out from a Mac faster than ever before, and perhaps even better, this trick can be used to send a file or document to multiple client recipients, be they on nearby Macs and iPads, or far away iPhones and iPod touches. … Read More
Like other forms of unix, the root directory of Mac OS X is simply /, but from the Finder it also takes the name of your primary hard drive. By default that is “Macintosh HD”, and newer versions of Mac OS have started to hide the root folder from users because most users simply don’t … Read More
Have you noticed that when you’re browsing through folders on the Mac that icons are actually previews of images and even live playable videos? This sure makes the OS X Finder snazzy looking, but in some situations where tons of images and video files are contained within single folders, it can have the unwanted side … Read More
All My Files is one of those features of Mac OS X that was somewhat controversial at first, but once you start using it often, you can stop sorting files yourself in the Finder and just let All My Files, search, and Spotlight manage documents instead. Nonetheless, there are still times when you’ll want to … Read More
Did you know the Finder in Mac OS X has a built-in instant image slide-show feature? It’s part of Quick Look, and though it’s been around a while, it’s a little known feature that is really great when you want to quickly show off a group of pictures, or even if you just want to … Read More
The latest versions of Mac OS feature deeper iCloud integration than ever before on the Mac, a feature that is extremely convenient for syncing things likes desktop Notes, desktop Reminders lists, documents, emails, bookmarks, and whatever else with iOS devices, but it can also be frustrating when you’re just trying to save a file in … Read More
Unless it has been disabled, any Finder window in Mac OS X has the View option buttons in the windows toolbar. From left to right you can select icon view, list, columns, and coverflow. You may have noticed the window view style doesn’t always persist across Finder windows though, even if you selected “Always Open … Read More
Anytime you create an alias in Mac OS X the resulting alias of a file, app, or folder, will include the arrow icon in the corner. This makes it easy to identify any item as an alias, but you can hide the alias arrow badge from icons if you don’t want to see them. Here … Read More
The optional Path bar shows the complete filesystem path to the current working directory in any Finder window of Mac OS X. This optional window-dressing item has more use beyond that though, because not only does it show you the present directory, it’s also interactive. In short, that means you can double-click the individual folders … Read More
If you want color icons back in your OS X Finder window sidebar but don’t want to deal with the existing procedures of manually installing SIMBL and the other components, grab SideEffects instead. SideEffects is a simple package that includes the three necessary components to add color back to Finder sidebar icons; SIMBL, ColorfulSidebar, and … Read More
By using Mac OS X Smart Folders, anyone can quickly access all files they were working on yesterday without caring about where they were stored or what folders they reside in. There are two ways to set this up, the first will utilize a quick modification to “All My Files” and the second will be … Read More
Whether you’re feeling the pinch as hard drive space runs low or you’re just wondering where all your disk space went, it’s easy to find large files in Mac OS X by using the built-in search tools. You don’t need to use any third party tools here, instead you’ll rely on search operators and the … Read More
You can drag and drop files directly from Spotlight to elsewhere in the Mac OS X Finder. This allows Spotlight search to function as a sort of basic file manager, not quite like the Finder, but at least for quickly locating and moving a document of any type on the Mac to another location, or … Read More
Many years ago before Mac OS X, the Mac OS Finder was much more simple. There was no toolbar, no sidebar, no drop shadows, and each folder opened in it’s own window showing you only the icons in that Folder. That was basically the default desktop experience from Mac OS 1.0 through Mac OS 9, … Read More
Modern versions of Mac OS X include a nice new ability to be able to duplicate and paste files exactly. Basically this means that if a file is owned by another user, Duplicate Exactly and Paste Exactly will preserve the files original ownership and permissions, rather than copy the file with the current user becoming … Read More
The Command+Tab application switcher gets a lot use by many Mac OS X power users, and by default it will include the Finder in the apps to be able to switch to and from. If you’d rather limit the App Switcher to only swap between open applications and not include the Finder though, you’ll have … Read More
Need to quickly restart the Finder in Mac OS X? Perhaps for a change to take effect with a defaults string, or to resolve a simple error or problem? Restarting the Finder does just what it sounds like, it quits the Finder application and then re-opens it again.
File extensions (like .jpg, .txt, .pdf, etc) make it easy to see what a specific file type format is, but as many Mac users notice, those file extensions are hidden by default in Mac OS X. While hiding the format suffix makes for a cleaner user experience and is fine for many users, it can … Read More
