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Finder Tweaks 1: The Toolbar
Only with a bit of Finder tweaking, Finder can be transformed into your most powerful tool in managing files and boosting productivity.
For this time, we will guide you in tweaking your Finder's toolbar, especially in adding extra items, connecting to Terminal, and renaming tools.
Let's proceed further…
Adding Extra Items to Finder Toolbar
Perhaps, Finder you see now is only showing most basic tools in file management. But with simple tweaks, you can take out extra tools from it; just follow this guide:
- Open Finder
- Hold Command-Option and click on Top-Right Pill Button
- Bunch of Extra Tools will appear right before you
Now you just need to drag and drop your favorite tool(s) onto your toolbar. I particularly like the tool named Path which enables me to jump to any upper level of my current directory.
Shown Above. Extra Tools Inside Finder Toolbox
Not only limited to those extra tools, you can even add application icons to your toolbar by dragging-and-dropping (and command-drag-drop to remove them).
Anyway, the longer your application name is, the wider it will eat up your toolbar space.
Shown Above. Application Icons Attached onto Finder Toolbar
If you don't like to see big icons for your Finder toolbar, just command-click on top-right pill button to change the display mode.
Connecting Finder and Terminal
Introducing you a very useful Finder utility, Open Terminal Here, that enables you to open current Finder working directory on Terminal. This will save your time from switching between directories with Terminal command cd [dir].
Shown Above. Open Terminal Here with Leopard-Theme Icon
Renaming Finder Tools
This is the last tweak for this article (and maybe the coolest one), where we will teach you on renaming your tools by modifying a
Let's say you want to change the name of Back into Move, then :
- Open Finder
- Go to Macintosh HD → System → Library → CoreServices
- Control-Click on Finder icon and choose Show Package Contents
- Move on to Contents → Resources → English.lproj
- Open and edit LocalizableCore.strings
-
Search for "TL8" = "View" and rename it to "TL8" = "Move".
If you can't directly update it, you should move it somewhere else, edit and replace original file with updated version
Shown Above. LocalizableCore.strings Opened with Xcode
For this new change to take effect, you should relaunch your Finder.
Last Word
More Finder tweaks will be revealed on the next part. I believe you also want to share us some cool tweaks you know, don't you?
Related Entries
Some articles taken from our resource base, tightly related to current article, to empower you with more knowledge on tweaking the most out of your Mac.
28 Comments
David
I always choose "Icon Only" in every application if I have the option, because I think it greatly reduces clutter, and the icons is easy to read at a glance anyway. A application that I find useful in the toolbar is Time Machine, because it related to the Finder anyway.
NaVi
Exciting! Finder tweeks =) I like the Terminal thing.. Oh and don't forget to show how to change the finder background etc. through the contextual menu in finder. I had customized finder in many ways, but i recently discovered (how could I have missed it??? ) the background option. So I just resized the aqua wallpaper (you can find it in Macintosh HD -> Library -> Desktop pictures) to a finder-friendly size (1500x...). I like finder much more now ;P
Shawn
I used to use a background in my finder, but I hate how you cannot have the background repeat itself. I had to photoshop a photo to fade to white just so it would look better. Is there a way to tile an image in finder?
Riker
"Now you just need to drag and drop your favorite tool(s) onto your toolbar. I particularly like the tool named Path which enables me to jump to any upper level of my current directory." FYI, you can do this in any finder window by double-finger clicking on the window name. It will drop down a list of each level of the current window's path. Fun side note - this also works in Safari with URLs, so if you're reading through a blog's archive for example, and the URL is several folders deep (such as: ...blog/archive/june.html), double-finger clicking on the window name will let you jump to the default url for each folder level up the current path.
Jeff
Sorry for being slightly off topic, but since you are talking about Finder's tweaks, could you please tell me how can I change the name of the "Untitled" to "Windows HD" in the Finder's sidebar (yes, I'm using Bootcamp), because I can't find any decent answer with google. Thanks in advance. Jeff
Olav
To rename your bootcamp partition, just boot to Windows and rename the Hard Drive from there (from the Windows explorer). To hide your bootcamp HD, do the same only the name should start with a dot (.) before the name of the HD. e.g.: ".hidden"
NaVi
Now I have an off topic question too.. I have used mac os x for almost a year now, but one thing that irritates me somehow is the lack of the possibility to navigate through dialog window options. That means that if there is a dialog, like save/ don't save etc., I can't choose my option through using the directional buttons... In windows that IS possible, also with (shift-) tab.. So does anyone know if this option is built in os x too?
Jeff
@Olav Thank you very much!
SomeDude
@NaVi Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts and where you see Full Keyboard Access make sure All Controls is selected. This will let you tab and shift+tab through dialogs. Main diference with windows is that you select with the spacebar, NOT enter
NaVi
@SomeDude Thank you very, very much =) This is a very simple solution, yet effective.. This will save time for it not being necessary anymore to use the mouse all the time. Thanks again!
Riker
Here's another time saver for you - the spacebar does select buttons that are outlined in blue... but if the entire button is blue, pressing enter will act on that button no matter which other button is outlined.
NaVi
@ Riker Yeah thanks mate. That will indeed save time : - )
scotty2shots
re: hiding Boot Camp volumes in Finder: OSX now prevents you from renaming volumes to begin with a . - it gives me an error message saying those names are reserved for the system. also, WinXP prevents me from adding the . to the volume name, giving me a no punctuation filename error. any workarounds?
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