10 Killer Tips for Using Aliases on Your Mac

An alias (or in Windows, a shortcut) gives you a representation of that file, folder or application you search often for. It's not a duplicate of your item, just a shortcut to it. In fact, I think the Windows term shortcut is more descriptive of what it is. The way it works is that your item stays wherever you really want it, but you can put an unlimited amount of aliases pointing to it anywhere you want.

The idea is to put the alias where it will be most useful for you. There are 5 key areas that you will want to use them: the Dock, the Finder Sidebar, the Finder Toolbar, your Desktop and in any other internal folder that makes sense. To create one in the Dock or Sidebar, just drag your item there. To add one to the Finder window Toolbar, Cmd-drag it there. And for adding one to the Desktop or another folder, Cmd-option-drag the item to where your want your alias of it. Not very consistent, but oh well.

So here they are: 10 killer tips for using aliases on your Mac.

1. Put an alias of your hard drive in the Dock to navigate it via menus. Once the alias is there, click and hold and watch the menus pile out for total hard drive access.
2. If you are a switcher, put an alias of your Applications folder in the Dock to give you that Start button feel. Just click on it to launch your programs.
3. Put an alias of current project folders in the Finder sidebar so those folders are in all your Open and Save dialog boxes for quick access. Remove them when no longer used heavily.
4. Put aliases of applications that quickly open common files, like Preview, Text Edit and Safari, in the Finder toolbar. This way, even if you have special programs like Photoshop assigned to opening jpegs or some other common file types, you can easily drag the jpeg to the top of the window and open it in Preview for a quick look.
5. Create a folder called Favorite Programs and fill it with aliases of your top 10-15 applications so you don't have to scroll and search through dozens of apps in your Applications folder. Add this one to the Sidebar or Dock.
6. While you are connected to a networked drive, make an alias of it on the desktop. Once you are disconnected and want to reconnect, click the alias to start the connection again. This seems to be hit and miss, but when it hits, it's a great way to bypass making the network connection all over again.
7. Create an alias of your Utilities folder and call it " Utilities" with a space in front of it. Now it will be at the top of your List and Column views of your Applications folder and you won't have to scroll to the bottom for it. This tip will work anytime you have a folder with too many items and the most used ones are at the bottom.
8. Create aliases for your movies that are outside of the Movies folder and put the aliases in the Movies folder so Front Row can find them. If you have a large amount, organize into sub-folders so Front Row doesn't have to scroll forever.
9. Archive old projects in an Archives folder and then put aliases of key archived project folders in a current project folder when they are relevant. It's as easy as if the archived project never left, but still helps cut down on clutter.
10. If you have so many drives mounted on your desktop automatically that they create clutter, you can create aliases of the important ones and then turn off Show Hard Disks and Connected Servers in the Finder Preferences. This will leave you with just the ones you want one the desktop and you can always find the others by selecting your Computer in the Finder window sidebar.

Bonus Tip: If you like to add several folder or file aliases to your Dock, Give them custom icons first so you can tell them apart at a glance.


I'm sure this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Share your favorite alias tips in the Comments section below!

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