Mac Tip: Arrange Your Files In The Finder

This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.


How To: Arrange Your Files In The Finder

When navigating through files and folders you will be in a Finder window. At times you may wish to arrange your content differently for easier browsing.

You can of course click on name, date modified, size, and kind from the top of the Finder window when in list mode but not all of us use list mode. Some are interested in a little more fine tuning.

If this is the case you can select the following drop down arrangement icon which will separate your files and folders into a more coherent view:

Once you select one of the arrangement views you will no longer be able to simply click on date modified, sized, or name in the finder window and have the content arranged accordingly. If you want that control you will need to select None as shown in the image above.

Please note these settings will only apply to a single folder or Finder window and will not be replicated across your entire computer.

Below are example of the four main views in Finder windows and how they will look when Date Modified is selected from the arrangement icon:

This represents icon view
This represents list view
This represents column view
This represents cover flow view.

For more helpful tips, check out our full collection of tutorials by visiting our How-To category!

Mark Greentree

Mark Greentree is the principle blogger and podcast creator of Everyday Mac Support. His aim is to inform users at all levels of experience how to get the most out of the Apple hardware and associated software. He is the lead host of Not Another Mac Podcast, an Apple based round table discussion with Mac users and experts from all over world.