Finder

Today in Apple history: OS X Panther claws its way onto Macs

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Mac OS X Panther brings Exposé and other new features.
OS X Panther brought cool new features to Macs.
Screenshot: Gudebookgallery/Apple

October 25 Today in Apple history: Mac OS X Panther arrives on Macs October 25, 2003: Mac OS X Panther arrives on Macintosh computers, bringing several useful new features and making Safari Apple’s default web browser for the first time.

The new Exposé feature in OS X Panther lets Mac users instantly view all open windows at once. And the new iChat AV allows people to talk with audio and video as well as text.

Rename multiple files on Mac the easy way

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Bring Method to Madness
Restore order to your file system.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

It’s easy to rename multiple files at once on a Mac using the Finder’s batch rename tool. If you have a big series of pictures, videos, screenshots or documents in a series, you can use this feature to rename them all in a similar format and sequence.

You don’t have to take on such a tedious task by hand.

6 useful apps hiding in your Mac

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No Downloading Required
Nothing to download or install — you’ve already got ’em.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

If you work on a Mac, these six useful apps can help you get that work done faster. And you don’t need to take time to download them or figure out if they’re worth the price — you already have these apps on your computer.

These come with every Mac, and you can locate them in the Applications and Utilities folders. If you’re in the Finder, just hit Shift-Command-A (⇧⌘A) or Shift-Command-U (⇧⌘U) to find them.

I’ll walk you through a few of the more useful Mac apps hiding there that you probably haven’t heard of.

The hidden Mac keyboard shortcuts you don’t know

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Stock photo of someone with their hands on a MacBook keyboard.
Despite what this stock photo implies, I believe your Mac has to be turned on for the keyboard shortcuts to work.
Photo: Fabian Irsara firsara/Wikimedia Commons

Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to speed yourself up when you’re using a Mac. Mastering them means more time spent getting things done and less time spent moving your hands back and forth between keyboard and trackpad.

There are the basics like Command-C and Command-V for copy and paste; Command-B, Command-I and Command-U for bold, italics and underline; Command-Z and Shift-Command-Z for undo and redo. But for a lot of people, that’s where their knowledge ends.

You can do so much more than you may know. Here’s a guide to the best Mac keyboard shortcuts.

Every Mac nerd needs this whimsical wallet [Review] ★★★★★

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Untitled Folder Wallet in hand outside★★★★★
It’s a folder! It’s a wallet! It’s untitled!
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

If you’re the right kind of person, the Untitled Folder Wallet by Nik Bentel is handy and practical while doubling as a funny visual joke. It’s a premium leather wallet that happens to look exactly like the New Folder icon in macOS.

It has three pockets for carrying cards, cash and coins. The leather is soft and the stitching holds strong. And best of all, it’s shaped like a tiny folder.

It’s a limited-run item of only 500 units, so if you want one, you’d best order now. I’ve been using it for about a week. Surprisingly, I fell in love with it.

How to stop unwanted app launches on Mac startup

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If starting up your Mac launches a plethora of windows you don't need or want, you may want to try our tips.
If starting up your Mac launches a plethora of windows you don't need or want, you may want to try our tips.
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac

Years ago I was a regular Mac user who switched to PC for a long time. When I fully re-immersed myself in the Apple ecosystem, an old annoyance came right back — all those unwanted apps launching for no apparent reason on startup, slowing things down.

Like many folks, I don’t restart my Mac very often these days because Sleep mode has its benefits. So having to close a bunch of apps is not a massive annoyance. But for anyone who wants a fix, there are easy ways to disable startup items.

And if those don’t work, you can try a couple of tricks to get rid of hidden launch agents.

Force Mac apps to open in glorious full-screen mode

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Full-screen works great on a MacBook.
Full-screen works great on a MacBook.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Full-screen mode on a Mac is pretty great. Unlike Windows, where full-screen apps have been the default since forever, the Mac’s full-screen abilities are a fairly recent addition. And the default is still for apps to launch in smaller windows, which is the Mac Way. But what if you want those apps to launch in full-screen every time you open them? Well, by changing one setting — and abandoning an ingrained habit — you can have exactly that.

Bonus: Full-screen app launching will only apply to the apps you choose, leaving the rest of them to behave normally.

How to add a Smart Folder to your Mac’s Dock (and why you’ll want to)

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A Smart Folder can make a powerful addition to your Dock.
A Smart Folder can make a powerful addition to your Dock.
Photo: Dan Counsell/Unsplash CC

I have an app I use every day, but whenever I open it, it opens to a new, blank document, instead of the project I was working on when I closed the app. To open that project, I have to mouse up to my Mac’s menu bar, click on File > Recent Items…, and find it in there.

To fix this, I set out to find a way to easily access the last few projects from this app. What if I could put this list of recent projects into my Mac’s Dock? It turns out that you can easily do this, using a quick Spotlight search, a Smart Folder and a drag to the Dock.

Service Station app customizes your Mac’s right-click menu

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Service Station
Service Station should be on every Mac.
Photo: Knurling Group

Service Station is the Mac app I didn’t know I was waiting for. It lets you customize the Finder’s right-click contextual menu to put essential functions just a click away. It’s also from the Mac App Store, and uses the official Finder Extension framework, so you don’t need to worry about running some weird hack on your machine.

Unfortunately, it only runs on macOS 10.14.4 or later, so I can’t use it on my old iMac. (That’s a sad-face emoji right there.)

How to change the Files sort order in iOS

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empty podium sort order
A metaphor for "sort order."
Photo: Joshua Golde/Unsplash

On the Mac, you probably know all the tricks for sorting things in the Finder. You can choose icon, list and column views. And you can sort the files and folders in those windows by various dates (added, created, modified), size, name and lots more. Some, but not nearly all, of these sorting options are also available on iOS in the Files app. Let’s take a look.

This Command key shortcut will change how you use your Mac

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command key
Take command.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

There are two kinds of Mac users. The sad, harried folks who don’t know how to use this easy, essential, life-changing Command key trick. And the happy, efficient, relaxed people who learned it years ago. If you’ve seen the movie Back to the Future, it’s like the difference between the two 2015 versions of George McFly, before and after Marty screws around with the 1950s. This trick will change your life.

Are you ready?

Front and Center makes the Mac Finder behave like it should

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Front and Center screenshot
The window 'manager' you never knew you wanted.
Photo: John Siracusa

If you’re at your Mac, go ahead and click a window for another app (don’t forget to come back right away). Clicking an app’s window brings it to the foreground, of course. But did you notice that only the window you clicked came forward. If that other app has any other windows open, they will stay hidden. It wasn’t always this way. In pre-OS X days, the default behavior was to bring all those windows to the front. And now, thanks to a new app called Front and Center, from John Siracusa, you can get this behavior on a modern Mac.

How to fake Finder Quick Actions on older Macs

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Finder quick actions
Who doesn't love the Finder?
Photo: Cult of Mac

MacOS Mojave and Catalina both have Finder Quick Actions. These are buttons that sit in the preview panel of any file, and let you perform quick actions of the selected file with one click. Actions vary depending on whether you’ve selected an image, a video, and so on. The defaults let you rotate images, crop video, and turn most other things into PDFs. You can also add your own Quick Actions, using Automator.

But what about Macs running macOS High Sierra or earlier? Can you add Quick Actions? The answer is yes, kinda.

How to sync your iPhone with your Mac in Catalina

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iTunes-as-Swiss-Army-knife-pun.
iTunes-as-Swiss-Army-knife-pun.
Photo: Goran Ivos/Unsplash

In macOS Catalina, iTunes has been replaced by separate apps, but none of those new apps takes on the tasks of syncing your music, books, photos and other data to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. That responsibility now falls upon the Finder.

So, does this means you can plug in your iPad and drag and drop all your apps’ files between it and your Mac? Of course not. In fact, apart from this functionality now being in the Finder, not much has changed at all.

Files app makes iPad more Mac-like in iOS 13 [Video]

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Files app on iPad in iOS 13
File sharing was pulled from iCloud Drive during beta testing.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Apple has slowly been turning up the dial on what iOS can do, trying to make it more and more “computer” like. With iOS 13, one of the points of frustration with computing on iOS – and especially on iPad – is finally being addressed thanks to changes in the Files app.

With iOS 13, the Files app is taking a huge leap toward the Mac model of file management. There’s a whole bunch of smaller changes, as well as some big upgrades that make it really compelling.

This is what happens if you try to put a folder named ‘Dropbox’ in iCloud Drive

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A dropped box
A dropped box.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Dropbox is getting increasingly bloated and annoying — on the Mac, at least. When iOS 13 ships later this year, you’ll be able to share whole iCloud folders with other people, so you can ditch DropBox altogether. But how will you switch?

One thing you can’t do is just drag your Dropbox folder into iCloud Drive. iCloud just won’t let you. In fact, you can’t even create a new folder and name it “Dropbox.” WTF?

How to recover previous versions of your files on Mac

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Files may be clunky, but it's better than this.
There's no need to keep a zillion different versions of a file on the Mac.
Photo: Phil Roeder/Flickr CC

What happens if you’re working on a document and you realize you screwed it up? Maybe you deleted a few paragraphs without realizing. Or you’ve just been writing a bunch of nonsense for the past half-hour and wish you could go back to where you were before? On the Mac, you can easily do just that. It’s called versions, and it’s automatic.

Using versions, you can easily browse and restore previous versions of any document. Some apps have this built in, so you can do it right there inside the app itself. But the Finder also supports versions, so you can revert to a previous state of almost anything.

How to change the Slack logo back on your Mac

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Oh man, what were they thinking?
Oh man, what were they thinking?
Photo: Cult of Mac

Slack is everybody’s favorite way to waste time when they’re supposed to be working. And today, the biggest conversation in Slack chats everywhere is Slack’s hideous new logo.

It’s dull. It’s ugly. It has none of the personality of the original logo, and it doesn’t look like the Slack hashtag even if you squint at it hard.

If you’re on iOS, tough. You’re stuck with this awful new corporate abomination. But if you’re on the Mac, there’s good news: You can keep the old Slack app icon.

Step one is DON’T UPDATE THE SLACK APP YET!

The best Mac apps of 2018 [Year in Review]

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Year in Review Best Mac Apps 2018: Make Mac great again with one (or all!) of these top apps.
Make Mac great again with one (or all!) of these top apps.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac Year in Review 2018 The Mac may be way older than the iPhone and iPad, but it still has some tricks. 2018 saw some fine updates to some of our favorite Mac apps, as well as some amazing new apps that migrated across from iOS.

Also, Apple injected so much new life into a tired old macOS staple in Mojave that it’s made our top 5 list this year. Can you guess which one it is?

One of Mac’s best Finder features is now on Windows PC

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QuickLook for Windows 10
Preview files before you open them with QuickLook for Windows 10.
Photo: Paddy Xu

It’s okay to use a PC alongside your Mac, but you’ll find that some of the best macOS features aren’t available in Windows. One of those is Finder’s awesome preview function, but you don’t have to live without it.

QuickLook is a free app that brings the same preview feature to Windows 10’s File Explorer.

How to add AirDrop to your Mac’s Dock

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AirDrop is somehow conceptually related to balloons
AirDrop is somehow conceptually related to balloons.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

AirDrop is a fantastic Apple feature. You can use it to share files of pretty much any size with anyone nearby, even in the middle of a desert with no Wi-Fi and no cellular. It Just Works, and once you get used to it, any other way of sharing files seems primitive.

Today, we’ll make AirDrop even easier to use on your Mac, by adding AirDrop shortcut to the Dock.

How to master Split View on the Mac

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Split View on the Mac
This is how they did Split View on the olden days.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Split view on the iPad is amazing. Two apps, side-by-side, open up all kinds of neat shortcuts. You can drag text, links, and pictures from Safari into notes apps, emails, Pages documents and so on. The Mac is less in need of such a mode, because screens are bigger, and you can already place two windows side-by-side, but on a little MacBook, where every 1/64th inch counts, Split View is a great feature. Here’s how to use it.

How to get iOS’ handy Recents feature on your Mac

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Clock recent items
This clock illustrates the time component of 'recent' items.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

One of the handiest features on iOS 11’s Files app is the Recents view. This view — available in the Files app itself, and in any other app that uses the Files picker to locate documents — shows all the files you have created or opened in the last few days.

Did you ever wish you could do the same on your Mac? Well, you can. Today we’re going to see how to add a folder to your Dock that shows recent iCloud Drive files.

How to give your Finder window superpowers

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finder
No wonder this little chap is so happy...
Photo: Cult of Mac

The Finder has been with the Mac since day one, way back in 1984. But just because it’s old, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some new tricks. Did you know, for instance, that you can add a path bar to the bottom of the window to show the path of the current folder on your Mac? Or that you can add a status bar in the same spot so you always know how full your drive is? Or that you can add a permanent preview pane over on the right side of a Finder window, even in icon and list views?

Let’s take a look, and see what else you can do.

Pro Tip: See full-screen Quick Look slideshows in macOS Finder

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projector Quick Look slideshows
You don't need a projector to do a slideshow.
Photo: Kali Motxo/Flickr CC

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugQuick Look is one of the Finder’s best features. Whenever you have a file selected in the Finder, just hit the space bar and you’ll see a preview of that file. It’s a great way to quickly view photos, or read the contents of a document, without opening it in an app.

But did you know you can pull up full-screen Quick Look slideshows just as easily?