If you’re switching to the Mac from Windows, you’ll discover that the Finder is a way to browse the file system, similar to Windows Explorer. The Mac Finder is more than a file browser, though. It’s a road map to your Mac’s file system. Taking a few minutes to learn how to use and customize the Finder is time well spent. The sidebar offers shortcuts to areas of your Mac that you likely use the most. It’s a helpful tool that can help you navigate to important folders quickly without opening a bunch of windows unnecessarily. Organize similar files by applying a Finder tag. Once tagged, you can quickly view and work with the files that use the same tag. Working in one Finder view may not seem like a bad idea. You become adept at the ins and outs of using that view. Still, it’s more productive in the long run to learn how to use each Finder view, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each view. It’s convenient to see what an image looks like quickly. Still, if you need to see details in the image, open a larger version using Quick Look (macOS High Sierra through Big Sur). Select an image or file in Column view in Finder and press the space bar to open a larger version of the thumbnail image in a separate window, which can be enlarged further if needed without opening an application. In earlier versions of OS X, use the Zoom option in the Finder View menu to zoom in to the thumbnail image. Apple provides Spotlight, a fast search system for the Mac. Spotlight can search file names, the contents of files, and keywords associated with a file. You can even create keywords for files. One lost feature is the Smart Searches that used to reside in the Finder sidebar. With a click, you could see the file you worked on yesterday, during the past week, display all images, all movies, or whatever else you’re looking for. You can still perform smart searches on the Mac, but you won’t find them in the Finder sidebar.
