The Finder is a widely used software with many practical features that often go unnoticed. Here’s an overview of some of these lesser-known yet incredibly useful functionalities.
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Conducting Advanced Searches
If you’re anything like me, you have a plethora of files on your hard drive and sometimes you can’t quite remember where everything is. Luckily, since the introduction of Tiger, Mac has indexed all files to make them easy to locate.
Finder features a straightforward search area that can be quite powerful. You can add criteria such as file type, creation date, modification date, etc. To do this, start your search and click on the small + below your search area. This unlocks a number of powerful options.
You also have the option to save your search if you wish, and it will then appear in the sidebar.
In Finder’s settings, you can opt for searches to default to the current folder (a must for me: I dislike the default behavior that searches the entire disk).
Quick Actions on Images: Rotate, Convert, and More
Do you often find yourself needing to convert a bunch of images? I do, especially with the shift to the Heic format for photos taken with iPhones. Fortunately, Finder offers a number of useful actions right in its context menu. Select a group of images, right-click, and choose Quick Actions. You can then rotate, create a PDF, convert images, or even remove the background.
It’s possible to customize this menu. For instance, I might remove the background removal option to choose a more powerful one from Pixelmator Pro. I would love to add the Super Resolution feature to these quick actions.
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Batch Renaming
There are many apps on Mac for renaming a large number of files in batch. However, Finder natively allows you to do this.
Simply select multiple files, right-click and choose rename. Finder offers several options. You can replace text with other text, add text before or after the current name, and you can choose a custom format with a name and numbering. You can opt to replace numbering with a date.
Tabbed Browsing
It took some time, but Finder is now compatible with tabs. Gone are the days of having 50 Finder windows open; you can now open multiple tabs in a single window with the shortcut ⌘ + T, just like in any web browser. If you want to open a new window, you can always do so with ⌘ + N
Various Display Modifications
You don’t have to stick with the default setup of Finder. You can alter display settings in the View menu to make it suit your needs. For example, you can choose to display items as icons, in a list, or in columns.
In the same View menu, you can decide to show the path bar at the bottom of Finder. This is very handy for knowing where the current folder is located and for quickly navigating to parent folders. You can also display the status bar, which shows the number of items in the current folder as well as the number of selected files and the available disk space.
By choosing to display the view options, ⌘ + J, you gain access to even more settings. For instance, you can decide to always display in list view and show file sizes.
To customize Finder even further, you can add folders or files to the sidebar. To remove them, right-click on the icon and choose Remove from Sidebar
. You can also add application shortcuts by dragging and dropping an application while holding ⌘.
What’s your favorite Finder tip?
For those interested in the feature image, know that you can purchase your own Finder icon on Etsy.