3 Easy Tips for your Macbook’s Finder

There are many instances when users need to access different files and folders while trying to troubleshoot issues with their Macs. While fixing iTunes related issues or Safari related issues, you will be required to move files temporarily out of the folders to your desktop. Understanding some of the key shortcuts and workarounds in Finder can be valuable. This is particularly the case for folks that are new to Macbooks as it takes a little bit of effort in getting used to the new environment. In this series of articles, we will focus on a few Mac Tips to get you situated!

Tip # 1 How to Locate the File Path

Finding a Folder’s location is often critical. This is especially the case when you are trying to locate the system folders and identify files within these folders. On your Finder window, you can see the file path by simply clicking on View > Show path Bar. The file path is then visible at the bottom of the window.

In the Finder Window, if you want to open up a folder in a separate window, press and hold the command button and double click on the folder. It will open up the contents of the folder in a new window.

If you are working on a cluttered desktop and need to know a particular file’s location, right click on the file and choose “Reveal in Finder”. It will open the finder window and show you the exact location of the file.

Tip # 2 Sorting your Files to your Preference

OSX provides pretty cool productivity features to make things easier. If you want to arrange the contents of your folders by a specific order, you can control that by going to View > Arrange By menu option. You can choose to sort your files by date created or date modified etc. One helpful feature is that the Arrange By functionality also supports sorting by Tags. For documents that I am working on and are in a draft mode, I usually tag them differently than the ones that are complete and ready to go to my iCloud drive or archive. I also use tags to classify document in order of their importance.

The high priority or important ones get a different color code than the others. In order to tag any document on your Macbook, simply right click and choose the color. You can also right click and choose “Tags..” and define your own custom tags.

The ability of Finder to sort documents by Tags then provides a real valuable benefit.

Tip # 3 Easily Accessing your iCloud Drive on Finder

If you are an user of iCloud drive, you hate second guessing to see if the files that you saved to the drive are readily available on your other devices. This is an issue since it takes some time to properly sync across the multiple devices. If you want to check on the status of your iCloud Drive from your finder window, you can easily do that by pressing Shift + Command + I keys together.

This will bring up your iCloud Drive folder and you can see the status of your files at the bottom of the window. If you do not see the status you may have to enable it using the menu option View > Show Status Bar.

What are some of your favorite tricks and shortcuts for using the Finder App?

SK( Managing Editor )

Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.

Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.

In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.