Working with Finder Windows

Introduction: Now that we have a basic idea of how to get around our Mac let’s take a step further and look at how we get around our files and folders through windows. We do this primarily through Finder windows. You’re going to find yourself working a lot in the Finder and through windows as you’re working on your Mac. So let’s take a closer look at how we work with these windows in the Finder on the Mac.

Finder Windows: Now the first thing we need to do is we need to open up a new Finder window. How do we do that? All we have to do is just click on this smiley face, the Finder in the Dock. Now I can also go up to File in the menu bar, and you’re going to see we have New Finder Window. We do have to be in the Finder for this to work. If you’re in another app, you will not see New Finder Window under File. So now, let’s go over to New Finder Window.

Sidebar: So I have my window here. If we look, you’re going to see we have a sidebar to the left of our window. The sidebar contains different folders, and we can change what folders are shown in this sidebar. I’ll show you how you do that later on in the tutorial. I just want to give you an overview of how we work with windows in this lesson. To switch to a different folder, we just click on it. So I want to go to my Documents folder. I’m now in my Documents folder. If you have an external hard drive, you can also go to those external hard drives connected to your Mac. And then, if you’re using iCloud, you can go to iCloud Drive. So to go to any one of these folders, we just click on it.

Toolbar: Now across the top of a window, we have our toolbar. Our toolbar contains various tools. Our first few options here are for the view. We can change how our files and folders are shown. Right now, it is set up for icon view. But if I wanted to see it in the list view, I just click on the horizontal lines here, and now I’m looking at it in list view. I can also change how they are arranged, and then we have various tools. If I have a file selected, let’s go ahead and select this File here. I just click on it one time to select it. If I click on it twice, it’s going to open it. I just want to select it. From here, what I can do is I can go and share this File. This is what we call the share icon. And then we also have tags. I’ll cover these in more detail later on in the tutorial, but I just wanted to get you started in how the windows work on a Mac. Over to the right, we have our search.

Resize Windows: Now we can resize a window by dragging any one of the edges or any one of the corners. If I go to the lower left-hand corner, you’ll see that the cursor will change. And from here, what I can do is I can just click and drag, and it resizes it. I go over to the right edge, the cursor changes, and I can resize it. I can even do this from the top. So we just have to go to anyone of the edges or any one of the corners, and then click and drag, and we can resize the window.

Multiple Windows: Now with most applications, we can have more than one window. Let’s go ahead and open up a new window. I go up to File, and we go to New Finder Window. So now I have two Finder windows open. You’re going to see they’re stacked on top of each other. Let’s go over to the corner here. You can see it a little bit better.

Moving Windows: To move a window, what we do is we just click in that toolbar area. So I’m going to click in this area and drag, and then I can move that window around. If I want to bring the other window to the front, we can see that this window is in the front because we have those colors for our dots. Also, this gray here is a little bit darker. If we go over to this window you can see it’s lighter, and the dots here have no color. To bring this one to the front, I click on it now that one’s in the front. I click on this window, it brings it back to the front.

Expanding and closing Windows: If I go to the three dots here, even though it’s in the background, you can see that they turn color. What are these three dots? The first one closes it, so it just closes the window. The second one minimizes it. When it minimizes it, what it does is, it moves it into the Dock. Let’s go ahead and minimize this. And now we can see it is in the Dock. So it’s a way of keeping it open, but it just puts it into the Dock so we can access it later. How do we open it up again? We just click on it, and it opens it back up. And then we have the green button which opens it up in full screen. I click on it, and now it’s full screen.

Full Screen: When we’re looking at a folder or even an app in full screen, right now we’re looking at the Finder in full screen, you’re going to see that the menu bar disappears. Where did it go? How do we get it back? Well, all we have to do is just bring our cursor up, and our menu bar shows again. Bringing the cursor down, it disappears. Bring it up, it shows. Same thing with the Dock. You’re going to see that the Dock is no longer located at the bottom. How do we get to our Dock? I bring my cursor down, and we have our Dock. I bring my cursor up, the Dock disappears. If you no longer want to work with this in full screen, you go up to the top again, and then we click on the green dot. When I do that, it brings it back to our window. Let’s go and open up another window. I’m going to go up to File here and New Finder Window. So now I have three windows open. We can see all three of them here. I click on any one of them to bring it to the front.

I can also go up to window in the menu bar here as long as I’m in the Finder. I go up to window, and I can see all of my windows. So two of them are set for recent. The other one is set for my Documents folder. So now, let’s go and click on Downloads. So now I have one folder that is Downloads, one folder that is recents, and one folder that is documents. When we go back up under window, we can see my Documents, Downloads, and Recents. And all I have to do is just select the window that I want to go to.

Let’s take a look at a window for an application. What I’m going to do is I’m going to open up my Calendar. I click on it, and now I’m looking at my calendar. So this is another window. You’re going to see I have my three dots again. Again, the red one will close it, the yellow one will minimize it into the Dock, and the green one will open it up in full screen. Now that I’m looking at my calendar, if we go up to the menu bar, you’re going to see I’m looking at all my menu items for the Calendar. So this is how I know which app is active or in the front. Whichever window you have in the front is going to be your active app. So now, if I click on this window here for the Finder, what do you think is going to happen? Now we’re looking at our Finder because the Finder window is in the front. So I want to go back over to my Calendar. I click on it. And now we’re looking at our Calendar. This is how we can see which app we are in.

What do you think is going to happen when I click on the desktop? Remember, the desktop is part of the Finder, so when I click on the desktop here, it brings us to the Finder. So that’s another way of getting to the Finder is by just clicking on the desktop.

So that’s how we use windows to get around our Mac.