Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Finder filename sorting
The neat-freaks among us (myself included) enjoy keeping things in their particular place and order. When making a folder of files, sometimes I want items to fall outside their alphabetical order -- for instance, often I like to have a special folder that's always at the top of a list. The easiest way to do that is to name your folders with a symbol as the first letter in the file or folder name: like a space, an underscore ( _ ), or a tilde ( ~ ). Mac OS X determines the order of these special characters using your language settings in the International pane in System Preferences.
The names of files and folders in Mac OS X can use almost any character out of thousands of Unicode characters, which include symbols, arrows, and icons as well. There are only two characters you can't use: one is the colon (because it's used by the system). You also can't usually use periods (or full stops) as the first character in a file name (because they're reserved for hidden files).
Also, as far as Mac OS X is concerned, the folder name "AARON" is the same as the folder name "Aaron" (or "aaron" for that matter): this is called case insensitivity. Mac OS X filenames are considered case insensitive.
After the jump, a list of 112 common, easy-to-type characters, and how they're sorted by Mac OS X for English.
This list appears in the order that Mac OS X sorts filenames. So, for example, ~filename would appear in a list above _filename. The key combinations in the list are suited for U.S. English keyboards, so if you use U.K. English or another language, the keystrokes to create the characters shown may vary slightly.
Also, in the list, the shift key is noted with the ⇧ icon, and the option key is noted with the ⌥ icon. Press the keys indicated together to get the character shown. Some keys, like [comma] and [single quote] are noted in text, because they're a little hard to see on screen.
| Character | Keys to press (US English) |
|---|---|
| space | |
| ` | [backtick] |
| ˜ | ⇧ [backtick] |
| ^ | ⇧ 6 |
| ˙ | ⌥ h |
| ˚ | ⌥ k |
| _ | ⇧ [hyphen] |
| - | [hyphen] |
| – | ⌥ [hyphen] |
| , | [comma] |
| ; | [semicolon] |
| ! | ⇧ 1 |
| ¡ | ⌥ 1 |
| ? | ⇧ / |
| ... | ⇧ [colon] |
| ' | [single quote] |
| " | ⇧ [single quote] |
| ( | ⇧ 9 |
| ) | ⇧ 0 |
| [ | [ |
| ] | ] |
| { | ⇧ [ |
| } | ⇧ ] |
| § | ⌥ 6 |
| ¶ | ⌥ 7 |
| © | ⌥ g |
| ® | ⌥ r |
| @ | ⇧ 2 |
| * | ⇧ 8 |
| / | / |
| \ | \ |
| & | ⇧ 7 |
| # | ⇧ 3 |
| % | ⇧ 5 |
| † | ⌥ t |
| • | ⌥ 8 |
| ∂ | ⌥ d |
| ∆ | ⌥ j |
| ∑ | ⌥ w |
| + | ⇧ = |
| ÷ | ⌥ / |
| < | ⇧[comma] |
| = | = |
| ≠ | ⌥ = |
| > | ⇧ [period] |
| ¬ | ⌥ l |
| | | ⇧\ |
| ~ | ⇧ [backtick] |
 | ⌥ v |
 | ⌥ 5 |
| ∫ | ⌥ b |
| ≈ | ⌥ x |
| ≤ | ⌥ [comma] |
| ≥ | ⌥ [period] |
| ¢ | ⌥ 4 |
| $ | ⇧ 4 |
| £ | ⌥ 3 |
| ¥ | ⌥ y |
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 |
| 5 | 5 |
| 6 | 6 |
| 7 | 7 |
| 8 | 8 |
| 9 | 9 |
| 10 | 1 (then) 0 |
| 11 | 1 (then) 1 |
| a | a |
| ª | ⌥ 9 |
| á | ⌥ e (then) a |
| â | ⌥ i (then) a |
| å | ⌥ a |
| ä | ⌥ u (then) a |
| æ | ⌥ [single quote] |
| b | b |
| c | c |
| ç | ⌥ c |
| d | d |
| e | e |
| f | f |
| ƒ | ⌥ f |
| g | g |
| h | h |
| i | i |
| j | j |
| k | k |
| l | l |
| m | m |
| n | n |
| o | o |
| º | ⌥ 0 |
| ø | ⌥ o |
| œ | ⌥ q |
| p | p |
| q | q |
| r | r |
| s | s |
| ß | ⌥ s |
| t | t |
| ™ | ⌥ 2 |
| u | u |
| v | v |
| w | w |
| x | x |
| y | y |
| z | z |
| µ | ⌥ m |
| π | ⌥ p |
| Ω | ⌥ z |
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Justin said 2:28PM on 6-24-2008
Might want to mention that HFS+ is case-insensitive by default but may not always been depending on how the drive is formatted.
Reply
Sean Flanagan said 2:16PM on 6-24-2008
I just use spaces or non-breaking spaces (option-[space]) in different amounts to sort things the way I want. It doesn't use any visual clutter, and works like a charm.
Reply
Channer said 2:19PM on 6-24-2008
Please don't do this! As a sysadmin that has to share Mac OS X volumes out to PC users as well as Macs... special characters are chaotic when viewed via SMB. Sometimes they will show up until clicked, sometimes they will get replaced by $$##xyz or other times they will just not show up.
Please don't make the life of your sysadmins any more difficult!
Reply
Fuzzmanmatt said 2:29PM on 6-24-2008
Dear sysadmin:
Please migrate the remainder of our systems to the Mac. Make your life easier. Make my life easier. Thanks. Fuzzmanmatt
Reply
George said 2:37PM on 6-24-2008
Handy list, I was geeking out on this a while back, trying to find a standard character that would drop past the "z" without weird option+shift+command+etc modifiers. OS9 placed the underscore at the bottom I believe, and the asterisk at the top. The Unicode sorting isn't as elegant for the Finder. I just use the underscore to pop to the top and go no further, and that shouldn't mess with any Windows systems since it's a standard character - correct?
Also handy to keep in mind - dashes will eliminate spaces, yet keep words discrete; underscores make it all one "word" - this might mess up Spotlight searches. I see Windows users naming files with underscores replacing spaces all the time, so it might be a good tip for switchers. Also a good SEO tip for naming images for the web SEO.
Reply
jsw said 2:42PM on 6-24-2008
I use the tilde (˜) to start folder names if I want them up at the top, and for folders I want at the bottom (dormant or closed stuff that I have to or want to keep anyway), I start with a "zz".
This seemed obvious to me -- been doing it for years.
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Frank said 6:34PM on 6-24-2008
i use "zz" for stuff at the bottom, too. works great for me!
stainboy said 2:43PM on 6-24-2008
working at a printer, we can't stand it when people send us files with these characters in the names. it prevents us from decompressing zip files on our server volume, so we have to decompress on a Mac's hard drive. then we have to manually hunt down the offending file (a time consuming task), rename it and fix the now-broken link in the document. then we can send the job to our print system, as it throws fits if it encounters non-ascii characters in the path names.
if you are working in the design & print industry...or sending a job to a printer...do NOT use these characters in your file names. it could result in extra cost to you.
Reply
Robert Palmer said 2:59PM on 6-24-2008
Good advice. Since the Mac 101 series is aimed at new and novice users, I proudly posit that production professionals practice proper prepress procedures. Punctually.
Sorta got into a thing there. Sorry.
mare said 2:47PM on 6-24-2008
This reminds me of a long standing bug in OS X.
1) set Finder view to List view ordered by name
2) select a bunch of files and press Cmd-C to copy.
3) paste into a text message
4) see that your list of files is suddenly ordered completely different and arbitrary.
This was introduced in Mac OS x 10.0 so has nothing to do with file copying/pasting in the Finder.
I reported the bug a couple of times but the evil Next programmers that took over the OS never bothered to fix this. It worked that way in OS 7/8/9? Too bad, we're a modern OS now.
Okay, I take my pills now.
Reply
Robert Palmer said 3:07PM on 6-24-2008
I followed exactly your procedure to create this post, as a matter of fact, and everything copied over in order, with no problems. I'm using Mac OS X 10.5.3.
See? http://xrl.us/foyrq
mare said 9:32PM on 6-24-2008
I'm still on 10.4 so you tell me it finally got fixed in Leopard? Wow!
Unfortunately I still have some really important applications that are not Leopard compatible so I can't upgrade yet.
But thanks for checking!
Avinash Vakil said 3:15AM on 6-25-2008
http://img.skitch.com/20080625-fj7umxspjnyqejx45ywpudt35x.jpg
Here is another sample from 10.5.3
Dan said 2:51PM on 6-24-2008
I do this by adding a number:
EX: 0 zanthura would appear Applesauce
0 zanthura
Applesauce
I always use leading zeros before numbers under 10. Otherwise 2 would be sorted next to 20 and so on.
Reply
Phil E. Drifter said 3:13PM on 6-24-2008
no actually mac os x is smart enough to list numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 in the proper order.
Phil E. Drifter said 3:10PM on 6-24-2008
Use a space, not an underscore. I have templates and stationary in Adobe GoLive CS and if you give them a space before their name ( blogblank.html) they appear above the regularly alphabetized files, and they don't look ugly like they have a dick hangin' off their front end.
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Lcomix said 3:38PM on 6-24-2008
Hmm… The ellipsis one on my mac is alt colon…
Reply
HandyMac said 5:19PM on 6-24-2008
I noticed that too, only it's option-semicolon ⌥; ("alt" is a Windoze term, added to that key in recent years to handhold switchers) -- as it has been since 1984.
justareader said 4:29PM on 6-24-2008
I've been using the trick a couple of years. (prepending underscores to folder names to keep them 'floating' at the top of your column/list view)
You can even use multiple underscores (e.g. '__priority_stuff') to have *those* folders float above all others. Of course, it is possible to get carried away (e.g. '_______absolutely_most_important_stuff', etc) at which point it's probably better to refactor your folder organization anyway)
Reply
David Nieporent said 5:04PM on 6-24-2008
For those people who use the keyboard to navigate, starting names with spaces is a bad idea. Try typing the first letter of the file to select it. Whoops! Quick look!
Reply