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Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users
Fave Mac App 3. Path Finder 5
Path Finder is an award-winning file browser and management application for Mac OS X. This is achieved by adding on more useful features to the familiar user interface of Finder.
There are several features that I like to use while using Path Finder:
-
Multiple Tabs Browsing
Sometimes we might need to open multiple Finder window to drag-drop or browse around directories. Using Path Finder, we can combine all these opened windows into just a single window with multiple tabs. -
Temporary Stack
Although the drag-drop technique has become my habit in boosting my productivity in handling files. Path Finder enhances this experience by adding temporary stack where we can have a temporary place for drag-drop process. -
Dual Pane File Browsing
Often, we need to view different folders side by side. And the good news is, Path Finder provides the dual pane browsing ability for us. This feature of Path Finder is just too good to be missed. -
Quick Preview
By default, if we want to show information of certain item on Finder, we will reveal the Get Info pane by hitting keystrokes Cmd-Opt-I.
However in Path Finder, we can just toggle on Preview Mode and we can have all important information the item has. -
Recent Applications
Path Finder can also help us keeping track of up to 50 recent applications.
Even though it's quite pricey for an application, I still recommend using Path Finder. Path Finder really helps a lot in enhancing your Mac experience. For your information, there is 30-day trial provided for this application.
Screenshots are provided after the jump.
Homepage | Download Link: Leopard ↓ - Snow Leopard ↓ | License: $39.95
Daily Trick 35. File Aliasing
As we all have known, having alias (or well-known as shortcut) can save you a lot of time in navigating through files.
For highlighted items, there are 3 ways you can use to create an alias of them:
- Ctrl-Click on one of them (highlighted items) and choose Make Alias from the contextual menu
- Drag-n-Drop them with modifier keys Cmd-Opt pressed
- Hit the keyboard shorcut Cmd-L and the alias will be made
Depending on the situation, you can choose one of the making alias techniques. For example, if you want to make alias on the same directory and subsequently move it elsewhere, 3rd technique is the most suitable.
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Daily Trick 30. Smart Folder 2
In our previous daily trick, we have discussed about the Canned Searches, which is also known as Smart Folders. And in this daily trick, we are going to talk about creating your personalized Smart Folders, not just using the pre-defined searches.
First of all, you should open Finder window. And then followed by these steps:
- Press down Cmd-Shift-F to search items with a keyword, or you can also use Cmd-F to search items their kind
-
Now you can use the available option box to narrow down your search results.
Let's say you want to have a collection of JPEG Images, the option box selection will be Kind → Images · JPEG - You can add more constraints by pressing the (+) button sitting on the right side
- After you have finished with the constraining, click on the (Save) button and a popup dialogue pane will appear
- Fill in the name and don't forget to tick the checkbox labeled Add To Sidebar
- Upon hitting Save button for confirmation, your search terms and constraints will be saved in the form of Smart Folder and added to Finder Sidebar
Now, you can create as many Smart Folders as you want. And this will save your time by avoiding repetitive insertion of search constraints.
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Daily Trick 29. Smart Folder
One of our readers, Mahdi Hosseini, stumbled on the Smart Folder trick and he is eager to share with us.
Smart Folder TrickI came across a cool thing buried inside Finder.app.
If you like the current Canned Searches that could be used to search for certain files, such as All Documents, All Images, etc, and wish to have more search categories, worry not.
You can follow these steps to browse for more:
- Open your Finder and hit Cmd-Shift-G for opening Quick Address Jump
- Copy this address into the popped-down box: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches/
- You will find many Canned Search/Smart Folders inside with different search categories, you can drop some to your sidebar
- Everytime you want to do the searching, just click on the folder
For example, by using the Smart Folder: All PDF Documents, you don't need to search all over the place to find your PDFs, single click on this Smart Folder will do the job.
End of the TrickMany thanks to Mahdi for this little useful trick.
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Daily Trick 27. Simplify Finder Sidebar
If you feel that there are too many things on your Finder sidebar, you can hide some of the rarely used items. It's very easy to hide the items; You only need to drag-drop it out of sidebar.
However, if someday you feel that you will need the item again, you can:
- Go to Finder and open Finder Preferences → Cmd-[,]
- Choose the Sidebar Section
- Tick the items that you want to add onto the sidebar
- Or you can simply drag-drop the icon to empty space of your Finder sidebar
But up to now, I still can't find the way to hide the sidebar while keeping the toolbar shown, like in Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4).
If you want to change the icon, you can follow the guide written here and if you want to revert back to original icon, we can find the how-to inside here.
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Daily Trick 25. Quick Directory Access
Often, we want to quickly access to some directory paths to Finder, such as accessing folder Applications, Home, or Desktop. If you go to Finder Menubar → Go, you can see some pre-assigned keyboard shorcuts that can help you quickly access those directories (e.g. Cmd-Shift-A for Applications).
And for the directory not on the list, you can always use Cmd-Shift-G and fill in the path for quick directory access (e.g. ~/Documents/Drafts).
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Daily Trick 10. Show Only One
It's good that we can open many applications at once, without any hesitation, using our Mac. The bad thing is, more often than not, we will get distracted if we open more than one applications at the same time.
Perhaps, some people will suggest using Isolator or Think. But for you (and me) that are often lazy to download additional applications, there is still a way out.
You can press Cmd-Opt-H to hide all other applications.
Or you can also hold modifier keys Cmd-Opt while clicking on the Dock icon.
Either one will result in showing only one application and hide others.
Personally for me, I seldom use Dock-clicking, usually I will just combine Cmd-Tab with Cmd-Opt-H. I am addicted to Mac keyboard shortcuts, I admit it!
Categories:
Daily Tricks
Tags:
Finder,
finder
Ways to Relaunch Finder
If something happens to our Finder (freeze, perhaps), without the provision of quit option we will be certainly forced to restart our Mac. But that won't be the case if we have the know-how to relaunch Finder.
There are many ways to relaunch Finder, until now I've found 4 ways for relaunching Finder. Let's master all of them.
Finder Tweaks 2: Extra Toolbar Items
Sometimes when we are working around with Mac Finder, we need to have some quick shortcuts to quickly launch application or to navigate to particular application. From the Finder itself we can customize the toolbar.
You can actually drag and drop most used tools like Path, New Folder, Get Info, Eject, and Delete as main toolbar for most of quick file actions. To arrange toolbar, we can add one or more separators or flexible spaces.
Full Maximize Window. Now on Mac OS X
Most new Mac switchers fired complaints on the strange behavior of green 'maximize' button that fails to maximize window to full screen. If you're one of them, it's time to rest assured and check out this nifty little freeware: Right Zoom.
"This free tool fixes an inconvenient behavior of green Zoom button in Mac OS X. It will always expand windows on a full screen instead of strange resizing", explained its developer, Blazing Tools Software.
The installation of this application is pretty straightforward: only unzipping and double-clicking are needed. However, as this application is running on background, you need to stop it by executing Terminal command: killall RightZoom
Categories:
Tips and Tricks
Tags:
Finder
Restoring Original Icon via Get Info Pane
Perhaps previously you’ve modified many icons, yet now you’ve become bored with those changes you’ve made; now you want to revert back to your original icon.
The process of reverting back to original icon is quite easy. Let’s say you've transformed your folder icon into stack drawer icons two months ago, you could do the followings to restore back to original folder icon.
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…
Downgrade Finder Interface Level
Speaking of tweaking Mac, Terminal commands are the simplest way of completing preferences tweak. However, try to avoid system tweak (command lines involving sudo) as the effect will be catastrophic if it fails.
This time, the tweaking will be done on Finder interface which the interface will be downgraded to its lowest level, as in Finder for Sharing-Only Account. Fortunately, this simple Finder isn't merely limited to Sharing-Only Account…
Smart Folder on Finder
Searching with Spotlight has long become my habit to search for certain cluttered of files which I usually forgot where I put them. Even sometimes my search result returns another cluttered of files that I will need to add certain criterias to limit the search. These criterias include limiting search by adding more keywords, limiting the scope of the search and adding specific attributes (eg. Kind is Images).
Though after adding these limitations I will easily find my files, yet for me it seems to be such a hassle to do it again and again. But, to be really exaggerating, Smart Folder saves my life!
Using Smart Folder, you can save your search criterias into one beautifully constructed purple gear folder - it's the icon. And to do the same search again, only single click on the smart folder is needed.
Undoubtedly Useful Spring Loader
Using Mac for such a long time, there is this very intuitive way to open or move around files - by dragging - makes me feel lucky having a Mac.
Many will say that "Mac sucks because Mac can't perform cut-and-paste". Indeed, cut-and-paste feature isn't implemented on Mac, but this alone doesn't mean that Mac has a poor quality of built-in feature. Actually, there is much more useful built-in feature on Mac, the Spring Loader. What can it do?
Set Finder Background as Solid Color
Not long time ago (around 7-8 months), I've posted an article about How to Set Finder Background which teach you how to set custom image as your Finder background replacing the default solid white color.
Note: Don't see the cute icons, see the solid color background..
But, how if you want to set solid color as your Finder background?
Delete Files without Going to Trash Folder
Warning: The deleted files are not recoverable.
This is just a simple and quick UNIX tip to delete files without going to trash folder first. What are the steps?
Delete Normal Files
- Open
Terminal.app -
Type
rm -rf - Highlight files/folders you want to delete
- Drop them all to Terminal
- Execute it (pressing Return)
Finder - Plain List View
Activate Plain Finder
If you dislike the blue and white stripes on your Finder list view, you can use following line of Terminal command to make the background display plain white.
defaults write com.apple.finder FXListViewStripes -bool FALSE killall Finder
Finder: Checking Total Size of Files
When you want to check the size of a single file, highlighting the file followed by pressing Command-I (Get Info) is enough to extract out the file size.
Ways to Open Finder Window
Finder is just like Explorer in Windows. There are several ways to open Finder. Switchers, as well as Mac users, will find this article useful.
Finder at Dock
The most common way to open new Finder window is by clicking on the Finder dock icon and this is also the way I use at the very first time using my Mac.
Finder Trick - Quickly Preview Files
Glancing at the title will definitely leave you impression like this "Ah, he will be talking about Quick Look.", which is not fully correct. Even though Quick Look glamorously brought along with Leopard, this single feature, which we called it Icon View, shouldn't be neglected.
The Benefit of Large Icons
By default, the icons for your files so small that you could hardly extract any information from it. Fortunately, it can be set up to the size of 128x128 which will clearly reflect what are inside the files.
Leopard Take A Look - Hidden Selection
Think positively, this should not be a kind of bug brought by Leopard. This should be called 'The Leopard Hidden Selection'.
Preparation
This feature (or bug?) comes with our trusted new Leopard Spaces. It's brought by assigning Finder into one of Leopard Spaces. You may look at my other article Leopard Take A Look - Spaces for reference.
Finder is not located inside your usual Application folder. Finder is located at Macintosh HD → System → Library → CoreServices. After you found it, assign it to one of your Leopard Spaces, for example Space 5.
Magic Happens
When you got yourself at Space 5, you still have your selection. Now, let's try to go to other Spaces and draw a selection using your mouse. You will see the magic selection : The Hidden Selection.
Categories:
Tips and Tricks
Tags:
Finder
Leopard Take A Look - Finder
Everyone should already know that Leopard provides new features for Finder, such as Cover Flow and new Sidebar. However, who knows exactly the real beauty behind these features..
Cover Flow
As you know, showing picture, reading PDF, or even watching movie come in handy with cover flow. Let's see the snapshot I took when I watch the Leopard welcoming scene. Cover Flow view can be activated using keystrokes Command-4.
Moving Items Using 2 Finder Windows
Moving items in Mac is a little bit tricky.
There are two fast techniques to move items without having to memorize all keyboard shortcuts. The first one is by moving items' icon and the second one is by moving title's icon.
I usually use the first technique, i.e. moving items' icon. I just need to highlight all the items I want to move, grab all of them and drop into other Finder window pane. Two Finder windows pane will be required as you cannot do anything when you grabbed the items' icon.
The second technique is a bit unusual. Grab the icon on the left side of the title, drop it to other Finder window pane and the whole directory will be moved to that other directory.
Categories:
Tips and Tricks
Tags:
Finder
Label on Finder
In this article, I want to show you how to play around with label on Finder, only for Mac. I will discuss about how we can use Finder to label items, rename label and search labeled files.
Finder Shortcuts for Viewing
We often use Finder to browse through our files. Therefore, it's very important to know all viewing mode provided by your Mac Finder. Knowing this basic will be useful for you. Also, this will increase your productivity.
Finder can be opened by clicking on the Finder icon on the Dock.
Quicksilver, Change Background
I am a big fan of Quicksilver, I should and have to know how to change my desktop background via Quicksilver.
It's very easy to change your desktop background via Quicksilver. You just need to follow these simple acts.
Quit Finder
Finder is a bit special, unlike other Mac applications, you can't quit it. However, there are smart people out there who has found out way to easily quit finder.
If you're curious about this trick, you can continue reading the rest of this article. I've put the guide into simple step-by-step guide with some necessary explanations.
Mac Files' Rating
There is a way to make your rating and display, i.e. by switching your view to Column View. Column View Switcher button is located at the top left-hand corner of your Finder Pane.
After changing the view, you can create columns, arrange columns option or eliminate some of them. All of this can be done under Show View Options which can be triggered using keystroke Command-J. You may choose any categories for your column. But in order to show your rating, you have to display the Comments Column.