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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

File management is another one I'd like to add to the list of macOS screwups. How can viewing lists of files and moving them over from one place to another be so complicated?

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Most annoying for me is there is no simple way to simply search for files matching a name in a folder.

Attempting to search using Finder insists on bringing up a giant system wide search that indexes content of files, emails, every stupid thing that contains anything like the phrase I looked for.

So imagine I am sharing my screen and I try to just find a simple file and it's spewing the contents of my private emails in front of everyone. So aggravating.

Well, if Finder is in the folder, and you enter a search, then I see three options reading to just search in the folder. It pops up between the command bar and the folder contents.

yeah ... I guess I don't think that is simple when I have to click extra options to get to it. But also, it still insists on searching within files. I ONLY want it to filter on the file name.

I admit, I hardly use Finder. I usually use linux terminal with linux tools like find.

You can configure the default file search behavior in the Finder preferences in the "Advanced" section.

I've set it to search the current folder, you can also configure Finder to reuse the previous search scope.

MacOS apparently caches directory views somewhere, and I can routinely get the "Downloads" folder to not actually show what is in the Downloads folder; often having to resort to "open" on the terminal to access the file. I wish I knew how to force it to refresh the actual contents instead of reading it from the cache.

Do you have that folder set to sort by something useful like “date added”? Then it should work. If you have it set to not sorted then maybe the file is lower on the list and off screen.

~\Downloads is always the first tab in Finder for me and I almost always keep it to show the most recently added files at the top.

I always do date added, and it sometimes doesn't show new files in the file picker view most commonly - and then I have to go somewhere else and back and it seems to refresh.

The other weirdness is sometimes a file gets updated (think "touch") and it won't change it's order in the list.

Most of the time it works fine. It's like inotify or whatever sometimes doesn't fire.

Ah, I almost never use the file picker. I tend to keep certain folders open in tabs in Finder and drag from them to the apps or to the file open dialogs. I tend to do a lot of work in a handful of folders and never liked the process of of “File Open….now navigate to that folder you were just using”.

What is complicated about it? I typically keep a handful of tabs open in Finder and drag and drop between them or to applications. You can also always do CMD-C and then either CMD-V to copy a file somewhere or OPT-CMD-V to move a file.

I like that in Windows I can copy-paste the location from one File Manager windows to another one. Something that you cannot do in MacOs File Manager

This is possible but needs to be done with shortcuts instead of selecting the paths in the address bar:

1. Ctrl + Cmd + C to copy the folders path

2. Cmd + N to open a new Finder window

3. Shift + Cmd + G to open the "Go to folder..." menu

4. Cmd + V to paste the path

5. Enter to go to the pasted path in the new finder window

The other option is to right click the folder and open it in a new tab. But this doesn't open a new window.

Not quit sure what you want but you can copy or drag path information from the “Path Bar” at the bottom of a finder window/tab. I do this all the time to get a path in terminal

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