Finding Files or Folders
To manage folders and files, you need to know where they are. Is there anyone who hasn’t saved a file somewhere on a hard drive and then forgotten where we saved it? Never fear Spotlight is here!
Spotlight is the name of the wonderful tool in OS X that helps us find files and folders very easily. If you can remember just a word in the file or when you think you might have saved the file, the chances are you can find it with Spotlight.
Spotlight provides two methods for finding files: by content, and by meta data. Access the Spotlight content method by clicking on the small magnifying icon on the far right of the menu bar. Type any content text or meta data you want to find in the search field, and the results will be displayed in a vertical pop-up list.
To search for a file by its meta data, with no file or folder selected, type Command + F, or with a file or folder selected type Option + Command + space and the results will be displayed as folders and files in the List view in a Spotlight Finder window.
The list will show all the files or folders that match the search criteria. Here are the things you can do with the search results window.
- Select any file in this window and its path will be displayed in the Path Bar at the bottom of the window.
- Double click on either an icon in the list or on the Path Bar and it will be opened.
- Drag the arrow across the path and as you cross each path element its full name will be displayed
Power tip: Use Comments in a file’s or folder’s Info window Comment section to tag files for future searching in Spotlight.
Viewing Files
You can open any file in its creator application by clicking on it to select it and choosing File > Open in the Finder. Of course you can also double click on any file to open it in its creator application. You can re-define which application will open a document file. Select the file, and type Command + I. When the info window is displayed, click on the Open with: reveal triangle . A pop-up menu will list all the applications you have that can open that particular file type. For example, I set all text files to open with Bare Bones TextWrangler rather than Text Edit.
Did You Know? You can select a file then press the space bar and a preview of the file’s contents is displayed.
Moving Files and Folders
The simplest and most obvious way for most users is to click and drag them to where they want them to be. When you click and drag to move files in Icon View, the Finder Preferences will determine whether icons snap to a grid or not. The grid spacing can be defined in Finder Preferences pane which can be accessed by choosing Finder >Preferences or with the key combination of Command + , (comma)
Did you know? Spring loaded folders are another way to drill down into folders and reduce the time it takes to move files from one folder to the another. This techniques works in all views.
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