Mac 101: Finder window preferences

As we know, the Finder offers four ways to display your files. Namely icon view, list view, column view, and Cover Flow. Perhaps you prefer one over the others (let's say column view), but your windows open to icon view by default. That can be annoying but here's how to fix it.

First, open a new Finder window. Next, select your preferred display method and then close the window without doing anything else. Don't open a folder, drag an icon, nothing. Now subsequent Finder windows will default to your preferred setting.

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As we know, the Finder offers four ways to display your files. Namely icon view, list view, column view, and Cover Flow. Perhaps you prefer...

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dan Greenberg

I just recorded a simple applescript that creates a new window, sizes it the way I want. You can save it to the dock I believe so you can launch it directly.

tell application "Finder"
activate
make new Finder window
set current view of Finder window 1 to column view
set bounds of Finder window 1 to {90, 82, 1077, 652}
close Finder window 1
end tell

July 01 2008 at 9:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Moose

I have a follow-on question... for the column view (which I prefer), is there a way to keep the view preference for the columns maximized to the line length of the longest file or folder in that column?

I know about the option + double click trick, but is there any way to default to that view? Similar to one of the above posters, this is something that Windows has executed much more efficiently, and with less weird behavior than OS X (Maximizing the window in this view should NOT send the right edge of the window off the screen!!!!).

July 01 2008 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Moose's comment

William

Try Command+clicking to close the window after resizing. Or Option+click. I did one of those [I always forget which one] and it retained the width of the columns.

July 01 2008 at 2:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

LuminousNerd.com

Sweet! This is OH so helpful! Thank you so much!

Also, this works for resizing Safari windows too!

w00000t! Thank you TUAW!!

July 01 2008 at 12:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

.taft

How do you get finder to display certain folders in one view and other folders in another view?

This is the ONE AND ONLY thing that I wish osx did like windows.

July 01 2008 at 12:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to .taft's comment

Stuart

Danny - With the folder open, select CMD-J (or View, Show View Options). Set the folder to display the way you want it to and then tick the "Always open..." box in the view options panel. From then on the Finder will remember your view preferences for that particular Finder window. However, there's a bug in Mac OS X 10.5.x that causes the Finder to forget settings if you use the Finder Back/Forward buttons to move between folders that have different view settings (Apple BUG ID 5511735). Apple have been aware of this bug since November 2007 and still haven't fixed it! Please feel free to report it via Apple's Bug Reporting DB (https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/RadarWeb.woa/wa/signIn). Maybe if enough people complain, Apple will finally fix it! Cheers, Stu

July 01 2008 at 12:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chester

This doesn't work for folders one has apparently already resized. I have a few folders on my desktop for work related business, and when I double-clicked to open them, they were their old sizes. Isn't there a way in OS X to make all folders uniform in size, shape, and mode?

July 01 2008 at 12:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply