Get Productive By Customizing Your Finder Windows

Almost every thing you do on a Mac uses the Finder in one way or another. I like to customize my Finder windows so I can spend more time creating and less time searching for the right file or program. I hope you will find some of these tips helpful in your work too.

The Finder window has 3 key areas to it: the Toolbar, Sidebar and Viewing Area. You can customize each to help you use your Mac better. Let's start with the area that can have the most impact, the Sidebar.

The Sidebar
The Sidebar is the column on the left side of the window that has a vertical list of items such as Network, Applications, Documents and more. It's divided into a top and bottom, with Volumes or drives in the top section and a list of folders in the bottom. The folders may not look like folders. Instead they may have custom icons for Music, Movies and Pictures, but they are folders all the same.

The reason why customizing the Sidebar is important is that the Sidebar items also show up in the expanded Open and Save dialog boxes. So any shortcuts you make in the Sidebar also show up there right when you need them. To see this expanded view in your Save dialog box, click the little down arrow next to the file name field.

The key to remember is that you can change the contents of the Sidebar to be the folders that are the most use to you. My strategy is always have the 5-6 folders that correspond to my current projects in the Sidebar at all times. In addition to keeping the Applications folder in the Sidebar, I also have a folder called Favorite Applications that is about 10 or so aliases of my most used applications. That way I don't have to spend a bunch of time locating the most used ones in a long list.

So how do you customize the Sidebar? It couldn't be easier. You just drag folders onto and off the Sidebar as you like. You can also change the order by dragging them up or down. When you drag folders off, they disappear in a "Poof" cloud. Don't worry, the contents are not deleted. Try to remember that that the items in the Sidebar and Dock are just shortcuts to folders and applications, not the real items. You can also have shortcuts to applications in the Sidebar, but I suggest you put those in the Toolbar instead.

Last Note: If there is too much junk in the top section of your Sidebar, you can control what shows up there by going to Finder menu>Preferences>Sidebar and checking just what volumes you want to appear there.

The Toolbar
The Toolbar is a little more complicated because there are buttons, the Search field and room for more customization. The default set of buttons is useful to keep. You can add more buttons to the lineup by selecting Customize Toolbar… from the Finder View menu. I personally have added the Path, New Folder and Get Info buttons to my Toolbar. I think the most important one to add is the Path menu. This item lets you see where in your hierarchy of folders you are at any point and then jump up the list if you desire. It's especially helpful if you are in Icon or List View.

You should take a look at what's available in the customization panel and try out some different combinations.

In the previous section I mentioned putting application shortcuts in the Toolbar, right? It's not obvious, but you can also add shortcuts to folders, files and applications to the Toolbar just like the sidebar. The reason I suggest folders in the sidebar and applications in the Toolbar is because folders are useful in the Save and Open dialog boxes whereas applications are not.

To do this, you hold down option and command and drag a file or folder up to the middle area of the Toolbar, and the other items will make room for it. Remember, this is just a shortcut, not the real item. To get rid of the shortcut, just command-drag the item off the Toolbar.

I like to have both Preview and Safari in my Toolbar because I sometimes want to view the odd file in one of those programs even though that fie type is associated with another program. Once I have the Preview icon in my toolbar, I can drag any JPEG file onto it for a quick view, even though I have assigned Photoshop to open JPEGs when I double click on them. Yes, you can do the same thing with a shortcut in the Dock, but the Toolbar is almost always closer to your file than the Dock is, especially with a big display.

View Area
The View Area is where you manage and organize your files. Everyone has a different way of organizing their files, so I won't tell you how to do it. Fortunately, there are many ways to customize how you look at the contents of your volumes and folders. The main thing to do is explore the options in the View Options panel.

You get to the View Options panel in the Finder View menu>Show View Options. This brings up a panel with a bunch of check boxes, menus and sliders for the various views you are in. The options change as you click from Icon to List to Column View. With the panel open, cycle through the 3 different views by clicking the View buttons and watching what happens.

Here's a few tips: Always start out with the This Window Only radio button checked. This way the changes will only effect the window you are viewing. If you have the All Windows one checked, your changes will effect all subsequent windows you open. Only do this once you've found the combination of option you really want. Also, in List View, use Calculate all sizes sparingly. It slows down the Finder to always have this checked. And personally, I usually stick to Column View because it shows me the hierarchy which you can jump around in easily plus when you have a file selected, the last column shows some information about the file and often a preview, including being able to preview music and movies.

A Hidden Attribute. It's not obvious, but you can assign a color background to the file name. I use this function at times to designate a file as Old (grey), Needs More Work (orange), Ready to Go (green) or Done (blue). I assign these colors with a right click on the them, but you can use the Action menu in the Toolbar or the Finder File menu too. If you want to assign actual terms to the colors, you do that in the Finder menu>Preferences>Labels. I don't do it often, but when I am working on 50-100 files in a folder, it helps me keep track of where I am.

One Last Note: If having the Sidebar and Toolbars as part of your Finder windows annoys you, just click the tic tac in the upper right and they will go away, leaving you with just the View Area and a title bar. Click it again to get them back.

You can find more tips by following the links in Dig Deeper below.

I expect many people have their own way of customizing the Finder for their particular uses. Do you have any tips you want to share or any questions to ask? Use the Comments section below to join the conversation.

DIG DEEPER

Mac 101: The Finder - Apple.com

Mac 101: Modify Your Windows - Apple.com

Hide Hard Drives, CDs, etc on your Desktop - TUAW

The Lozenge Button - TUAW

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