The Finder

Finder is the bit of your Mac you use a hundred times a day without really thinking about it — but underneath that plain window sit some genuinely useful tools for finding, tagging, viewing and renaming your files. None of these need an app download or a System Settings deep-dive. Here are five Finder habits worth picking up.

1. Quick Look — see it without opening it.

Select almost any file in Finder and tap the spacebar. Quick Look opens a large preview instantly, without launching the app that created it. It works for PDFs, photos, videos, Word and Excel files, even folders (which show you a count and a quick scroll-through). Press spacebar again to close it.

Try this:

• Select a file and press Space to preview it instantly.
• With a PDF open in Quick Look, use the arrow keys to flick through pages.
• Select several files at once and press Space — you get a slideshow-style preview with arrows to move between them.
• Click the share icon inside Quick Look to AirDrop or email a file without opening it first.

 

2. Tags and smart folders — organise without moving anything.

Tags let you label a file by what it's about rather than where it lives — handy when one file belongs in more than one mental category. Smart Folders go a step further: set up a rule once ("all PDFs tagged Invoices") and Finder keeps that folder updated automatically, with nothing to file or maintain.

Try this:

• Right-click any file and choose a coloured tag from the shortcut menu.
• Find every tagged file at once via the tag colours in the Finder sidebar.
• Create a Smart Folder from File > New Smart Folder, then set criteria like file type, tag or date.
• Rename a tag once (right-click it in the sidebar) and every file using it updates instantly.

 

3. Sidebar and View options — make Finder work the way you do.

The Finder sidebar and toolbar are more customisable than most people realise. You can pin the folders you actually use, hide the ones you don't, and change how each individual folder displays its contents — icons, list, columns or gallery — independently of every other folder.

Try this:

• Drag any folder straight into the sidebar for one-click access, or Cmd-drag to remove an item.
• Use View > Show View Options to set sort order, icon size and label position per folder.
• Switch to Column view (Cmd+3) to preview file contents while browsing nested folders.
• Info or Tags.

 

4. Batch rename — fix dozens of files in seconds.

Renamed a folder of holiday photos and ended up with "IMG_4821.jpg" repeated fifty times? Select them all, right-click, and choose Rename. Finder will add sequential numbers, replace text, or apply a custom name format to every selected file in one pass.

Try this:

• Select multiple files, right-click and choose Rename N Items.
• Pick Format to apply a name plus a running number, e.g. "Holiday 2026 1, 2, 3…".
• Pick Replace Text to swap a word or code across every selected filename at once.
• Preview the new names in the dialog before clicking Rename — nothing changes until you confirm.

 

Things to remember.

• Space bar = instant preview, no app needed — use it before opening anything.
• Tags and Smart Folders organise files without you ever having to move them.
• Each folder can have its own View options — list, icons, columns or gallery.
• Batch rename works on any selection of files, however large, in one step.

Got a Mac through your company's TechBenefits scheme or Farpoint ? You'll get a fortnightly Mac tips email like this one. If you have a question about your Mac, hit reply — we're techies with the human touch.

TechBenefits is a trading name of Farpoint Developments Ltd. www.techbenefits.co.uk · 01225 460 678