Apple‘s Mac Finder hidden features are far more extensive than most people ever discover, and yet here we all are, just clicking through folders like it’s 2003. Finder has been refined over decades, and underneath its deceptively plain surface sits a set of tools that can genuinely reshape your daily workflow, once you know where to look.
Start With the Sidebar and Search Settings
The Finder sidebar is easy to ignore, but it’s one of the most personalised parts of the whole app. You can drag items to reorder them, drag folders straight into the Favorites section for quick access, and remove the clutter you never touch. Head to Finder Settings > Sidebar, uncheck anything you don’t need (Recent Tags, for instance, is a popular one to ditch), and the sidebar becomes a proper shortcut bar rather than a list of things Apple thought you might want.
Search behaviour is worth adjusting too. By default, a Finder search trawls your entire Mac, which is rarely what you need. Go to Finder Settings > Advanced and change the “When performing a search” drop-down to Search the Current Folder. While you’re in that menu, there’s also a hidden advanced search mode: after typing a query, hit the “+” button below the search bar to layer on multiple filters. Useful for anyone with a folder that functions more as a skip than an archive.
Automate the Boring Stuff
Two small settings will quietly save you storage space over time. In Finder Settings > Advanced, enable “Remove items from Trash after 30 days” and your Mac will handle the emptying for you. For zip files, open Archive Utility via Command-Space search, go to its Settings, and set “After expanding” to move the archive to Trash. No more duplicate files sitting around after you’ve already unpacked them.
Cut and Paste Files Like a Proper Computer
Anyone arriving from Windows finds this one baffling. The move-instead-of-copy function does exist on Mac; it’s just hidden. Copy a file with Command-C as usual, then use Command-Option-V to move it rather than paste a copy. Alternatively, go to Edit > Move Item Here, or right-click an empty space in the destination folder and hold Option to reveal the option. It’s the same outcome, just buried.
Quick Look and Quick Actions Are More Powerful Than They Look
Quick Look, the spacebar preview, is genuinely one of macOS’s better ideas. The gap is folders: press Spacebar on a folder and you get the size and file count, not the contents. The plugin Folder Preview ($1.99) fills that gap, letting you see inside a folder without opening it. A more capable version, Folder Preview Pro ($9.99), goes further, letting you copy, paste, and preview files from within the folder view itself.
Quick Actions, meanwhile, are tucked inside the right-click menu for individual files. Right-click an image and go to Quick Actions > Remove Background, and Finder creates a new version of the image with the background stripped out, no editing app required. It’s worth exploring the Quick Actions menu for other file types too, as the options change depending on what you’ve selected.
On that note: if you find yourself wanting the same background-removal trick on iPhone or iPad, How-To Geek points out that the Remove Background Quick Action is also available in the Files app as of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. And for Mac users who prefer working inside Preview rather than Finder, a thread on Reddit’s r/MacOS highlighted that Preview itself can do the same job: click Tools in the menu bar, then Remove Background. Handy to know you have options.
A Few More Things Worth Switching On
Finder Settings > Advanced is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. One more option worth enabling: “Show all filename extensions.” By default, Finder hides extensions, so a file just says “Invoice” rather than “Invoice.pdf” or, more worryingly, “Invoice.app.” Showing extensions is a basic security habit that costs nothing to set up.
The toolbar is also customisable. Right-click any empty space in it and select Customize Toolbar to see what’s available. Dragging in the Path button, for instance, lets you see the full folder path for wherever you’re working at a glance. The AirDrop button saves a couple of clicks too, opening the sharing menu directly rather than routing you through the menu bar.
Finally, if you use Icons view (Command-1), pressing Command-J opens View Options, where you can set a custom background colour or image for that folder window. It won’t suit everyone, but it’s there if you want it, which is fairly typical of Finder in general: more going on than the surface suggests, for anyone who bothers to check.
