Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Folder shortcuts in the Finder
Another quick tip in our Mac 101 series for beginners: Some special folders on your computer have keyboard shortcuts that you can press to instantly navigate to that folder when using the Finder.
For example, to open your Applications folder, click on your desktop and use the shift (⇧) and command (⌘) keys to type ⇧ ⌘ A. Voilà! Your Appplications folder appeareth.
Other folders have shortcuts too:
- Your computer: ⇧ ⌘ C
- Your home folder: ⇧ ⌘ H
- Your desktop: ⇧ ⌘ D
- Computers on your local network: ⇧ ⌘ K
- Your Utilities folder: ⇧ ⌘ U
- Your iDisk: ⇧ ⌘ I
You can also bring up a dialog box to specify a path to a specific folder on your hard disk by typing ⇧ ⌘ G.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Riddle said 9:53AM on 7-31-2008
Two questions:
* How to access Downloads?
* How to bring back "Shared" item in Finder’s sidebar? I "po-oh"-ed it a while ago but it’d be useful to me now.
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delight1 said 10:43AM on 7-31-2008
it sounds to me as if you dragged it out of the side bar?
you can drag items into it, and almost all default home folders have unique sidebar icons ^_^
Riddle said 3:51PM on 7-31-2008
Yes. I know I can drag folders to "Places" but how to make "Shared" appear again? What should I drag?
Joseph Crawford said 9:56AM on 7-31-2008
This is a nice little trick that I was unaware of, thanks for the tip :)
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delight1 said 9:56AM on 7-31-2008
something to note is that making use of one of these when you already have a window open, uses that window's size/layout. personally, when i want my applications dir in finder, i use quicksliver so i can have my one really big window. great for save dialogs though.
btw, how the hell do i change my tuaw comments password?
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Stephen said 10:18AM on 7-31-2008
If you click on your name in the comments, you will be redirected to your Profiles page. You can change your password there.
John Russell said 4:42PM on 7-31-2008
I too use Quicksilver for all of my folder opening needs. I've just assigned them to the pretty much unused F13–F16 and a combination of Cmd, Opt, Ctrl, and Shift. Works pretty well and it's customizable, might I add.
Randy said 10:04AM on 7-31-2008
As a recent Switcher, Thank you. This is very useful.
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Josh said 12:24PM on 7-31-2008
Too bad no shortcut for Documents folder. Especially in save diags.
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ChrisM70 said 2:04PM on 7-31-2008
I noticed that all of your shortcuts were Shift-Command and a letter. (Example: ⇧ ⌘ A = Applications folder)
With that logic, I thought perhaps ⇧ ⌘ L would get you the Library folder. NOPE.
But what it DOES do, is that if you highlight a phrase or a word in Safari, Simple Text, and then type ⇧ ⌘ L, it will open up a new browser window and do an automatic Google Search! Pretty cool!
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diode said 3:48PM on 7-31-2008
When I first read the thread I thought "pfff. Here we go, another shortcut list" Then Bam! shift-apple-U? lifesaver, and then it gets even better with yours. Thanks Chris. That's a great tip.
James said 9:59PM on 7-31-2008
Inspired by curiousity, I checked out all the letter combinations on the keyboard, and this is what the full list comes to:
⇧ ⌘ A - Applications Folder
⇧ ⌘ B - Bluetooth File Exchange
⇧ ⌘ C - My Computer Folder
⇧ ⌘ D - Desktop Folder
⇧ ⌘ E - N/A
⇧ ⌘ F - Search
⇧ ⌘ G - Path to a Specific Folder
⇧ ⌘ H - Home Folder
⇧ ⌘ I - Connect to iDisk
⇧ ⌘ J - N/A
⇧ ⌘ K - Networked Computers
⇧ ⌘ L - Google Search for whatever you selected (default: Users/[yourusername]/Desktop)
⇧ ⌘ M - N/A
⇧ ⌘ N - New Folder
⇧ ⌘ O - If you select something, it opens slowly
⇧ ⌘ P - N/A
⇧ ⌘ Q - Quit All Apps and Logout
⇧ ⌘ R - N/A
⇧ ⌘ S - Speaks the Title of Whatever You've Selected
⇧ ⌘ T - N/A
⇧ ⌘ U - Utilities Folder
⇧ ⌘ V - N/A
⇧ ⌘ W - N/A
⇧ ⌘ X - N/A
⇧ ⌘ Y - Stickies
⇧ ⌘ Z - N/A
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nicleT said 12:27AM on 8-01-2008
Is there any way to shortcut the Documents folder with keys combinaison?
BTW, you should write "voilà" instead of "voíla" ;)
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niclet said 12:42AM on 8-01-2008
I should have write "combinations" instead of "combinaison"
;(
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Hans said 8:19AM on 8-10-2008
You should write "^" instead of "⇧".
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