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TUAW Tip: easily open a file or folder location

by David Chartier Feb 6th 2006 at 11:00AM


Here's an easy tip for quickly opening the Finder location of a file you currently have open in almost any app.

Let say, for example, that you're working in Photoshop on an image that's buried a few folders deep within your Home folder. You'd like to get to that file's location, but unless you've used Dave Caolo's tip for taking control of your sidebar (or you have another trick up your sleeve), it requires clicking on the Finder icon in the dock, then digging deep into the folder system. Well to bypass all that clicking, all you have to do is command click on the small icon at the top of the image window in Photoshop to open a popup list (pictured) of the full directory structure leading to your file. As you can see, my hard drive is named Stewie (yes, I use Family Guy character names for my drives), and my Home folder is named dcharti. I could then click on any of the folders in that list to immediately open it in the Finder, making it a lot easier to boogie around in the file system.

The beauty of this trick is that it *should* work in any OS X app that has a file icon (like Photoshop) in the window's title bar (not the white menu bar which sits at the very top of OS X's desktop), and even in some apps that don't necessarily display that icon. Try it in Word and Illustrator. Then try command clicking on Safari's title bar, as it will give you a list of URLs the frontmost tab has visited (like a tab-specific history). You can even open something like a local PDF file in Safari and it will give you the directory list.

I bet this works in all sorts of other apps I haven't even tried yet, but it doesn't seem to work in database-driven apps like Mail.app and NetNewsWire. If you find some handy extras with this trick, feel free to add them to the pile in the comments.

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Here's an easy tip for quickly opening the Finder location of a file you currently have open in almost any app.Let say, for example, that...
 

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Gregory Wostrel

That is called a "proxy icon" and has been part of Mac OS since 8.5 (where have you guys been?). Notice that it is dimmed if the document in question is unsaved. The proxy icon has the same functionality in a Finder window as well as a documents title bar. I love showing Windows people how I can command drag the icon to a Finder window and "drill down" via pop open folders to some remote location and leave a copy of the file there (works for FTP even). Awesome stuff.

February 06 2006 at 2:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
iomatic

I do the same as etchasketch.


You know I was thinking about this last night; it seems odd that the hierarchy would be bottom-down, don't you think? Makes sense, from a window-real-estate perspective (titlebars are usually up high).

:

February 06 2006 at 1:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
D Jones

etchasketch, that only works when you're in the Finder, for showing where you are in the document tree. The whole point of this tip is when you have a file open in an application and don't *know* where it is in the tree. This tip takes place in the application with a file open, not in a Finder window where you already are.

February 06 2006 at 1:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
etchasketch

I prefer adding the Path button to the Finder, same result. Go to View > Customize Toolbar... and drag the Path button into the toolbar.

February 06 2006 at 1:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SAPO!!

try this one: when you have an open document, try to "click and hold" its icon on the top of the window: after a moment you'll be able to drag it and create an alias of that document anywhere, or drag it to some app on the dock (i.e. to quickly email it); or, if you command-drag it, you can just copy that document where u want to.

sweeeet!

February 06 2006 at 1:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
D Jones

David, we all have naming schemes for our drives that often baffle others. I'm not baffled by your choice, but the lack of proper icons!

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/familyguyiconset.html

February 06 2006 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Oliver

Go only knows what happened to my last post (the links are all screwy). Too bad there's no edit function.

February 06 2006 at 11:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
loki capret

Another related trick I love is the ability to drag any file or folder from Finder into an Open File dialog box to immediately have it jump to that location! It works great if you have the folder you are working in open in Finder and have opened an attachment in PhotoShop or other app and want to save it into that open folder, just switch over to Finder, drag the folder you are wanting to save into over onto the Save As.. dialog box and viola! It is now asking if you want to save into your selected folder!
A huge time saver for me!

February 06 2006 at 11:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Oliver

Actually, in Safari it doesn't show your history but instead shows a sort of 'hierarchical structure' of the page you are viewing. For example, go directly to:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/

Command click on the title bar and you should find:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/
and
http://www.apple.com/

It's not your browser history, because you went directly there.

February 06 2006 at 11:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John

Are you laundering money in that picture? :D

February 06 2006 at 11:16 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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