Mac 101: Get info
Switchers and new Mac users may hear veterans refer to "performing a get info." Here's what that means, and exactly what you'll get.Single-click a file or folder in the Finder and select "Get Info" from the File menu (or hit Command-I on your keyboard) and a new window appears. This is the Info window, and it provides a lot of information.
First, you'll see the file's name, size and most recent modification date. Below that is a field for storing comments or keywords to improve Spotlight search results. For instance, you might add "Colorado," "Map" and "Vacation" to a PDF you'll need for that upcoming trip.
Next you'll see the file's kind, size (again), location on your hard drive, creation date and most recent modification date (again). You can also add a color-coded label to any files you want to group visually.
Two checkboxes follow. Selecting "Stationery Pad" will force that file to open a copy of itself when double-clicked, and selecting "Locked" will prevent future changes (as well as deletion).
The "More Info" display depends on file type. For instance, an image will list data like dimensions, color space, etc. A Pages document will list last time opened or edited.
"Name and Extension" lists a file's name as well as an option to display or hide its extension. You'll also find an option to determine a file's parent application (the one used to open it), a preview of that file and finally sharing and permission information.
If you're new to the Mac, "perform a get info" on a few files to get a feel for that window and the data you'll find there. It's pretty useful.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bender Bending Rodriguez said 11:19AM on 7-23-2008
If needing to check the Get Info data of many items holding down The Alt/option key will allow you to choose Show Inspector. This is the same data as Get Info but will change with each item you click or arrow on.
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 11:19AM on 7-23-2008
If needing to check the Get Info data of many items holding down The Alt/option key will allow you to choose Show Inspector. This is the same data as Get Info but will change with each item you click or arrow on.
Reply
Chris said 12:00PM on 7-23-2008
Thanks!
wookie said 12:12PM on 7-23-2008
Alt-Cmd-I does the same without needing to pick from a menu.
riddlu said 11:56AM on 7-23-2008
Basically, "Get Info" is what "Properties" is on Windows. In various apps too.
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Peter said 12:15PM on 7-23-2008
next up, How to Plug in Your Mac...
Just joking - the 'Change All...' button under 'Open with' is especially useful.
You can change a file's icon in here as well by pasting onto the toppermost preview.
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William Hook said 12:25PM on 7-23-2008
Ah, is that what the Spotlight box does. What's the best way to add tags, too?
1) "this" "is" "an" "example" or
2) this, is, an, example, or
3) this is an example
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Dan said 3:15PM on 7-23-2008
William, #3 is adequate and I can confirm it works as expected when searching based only on tags.
William Hook said 3:17PM on 7-23-2008
Cool, thanks. :)
delight1 said 1:00PM on 7-23-2008
i would suggest mentioning command + ctrl + i, which forces the selected items to use the same get info window. it is get for seeing the combined files size of a group of files.
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P120D1GY said 3:19PM on 7-23-2008
Thanks man! This is actually something that was pissing me off about Mac OS X haha. Thanks for sharing.
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Mrtrik said 1:43PM on 7-23-2008
one note of caution though.... if you multi - select say, 100 files and do a get info, the default in windows gives you one dialog box, mac will open 100 get info's.
That was fun.
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Rhywun said 2:09PM on 7-23-2008
Tell me about it. I *still* do that sometimes.
Justin Piper said 3:36AM on 7-24-2008
You can close all the Finder windows that are open with Command-Alt-W or Alt-clicking the close button on one of them if you get into a situation like that.
Olligarski said 9:00AM on 7-24-2008
In Leopard selecting 10 items or less brings up individual info windows. Selecting 11 or more results in one summary window, just like Ctrl-Cmd-I.
Thomas said 3:23PM on 7-23-2008
It really bugs me that you can't add spotlight comments and labels from the save as box, seems stupid that you save a file, then have to go to the file in finder in order to add these things.
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Balls said 4:02PM on 7-23-2008
Sweet action. I added tags for all my phoenix wright mp3s!
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trendbreakr said 6:22PM on 7-27-2008
I just switched to Mac and I'm so used to "Properties" and "Delete" that I usually overlook "Get Info" and "Move to trash" in the right click menu. I keep forgetting that Mac uses really simple phrases to do things.
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