Adding a Folder to the Sidebar in a Finder Window

In this tip for the Mac, I’m going to show you how you can add a folder to the side. In a Finder window, go to my Mac. Let’s go and open up a new Finder window. I’m going to go down to my Finder here. I click on it, and we have a new finder window over on the left of this window. We have this little sidebar here.

We can customize the sidebar. You’re going to see by default; it has airdrop my recent folders, applications, desktop documents, and downloads. I want to add other folders to it. I can go up to Finder and then go to my preferences here. We have a new window that opens up. From here, what I can do when I go to the sidebar is I can go and select which other folders I want to add.

But in addition to this, we can also add our own personal folders to do that. All we have to do is drag and drop a folder into this side area here, the sidebar. So let’s go and create a new folder. I’m just going to go and create one that’s called personal. So I go up under file, and then we go to new folder.

Now I’m just going to call this personal. I want to add this folder here, this personal folder, over to my sidebar. All I have to do is drag it over there. So let’s go ahead and drag this over there. You’re going to see; I have a blue line or horizontal blue line on where it’s going to place it. So it’s going to place it in between my applications and desktop.

Let’s go and place it above my applications. Just move it up. We have to make sure we do not place it on top of another folder. Cause otherwise, it’s going to move it into that folder. We want to have this thin horizontal line, this blue line here. When I let go. We have my personal folder in here. So now, I click on it, and we are in my personal folder to remove it.

I control-click on, hold down the control key, and click. And you’re going to see, remove from the sidebar. When I remove it from the sidebar, it does not delete it from my Mac. All it does is remove it from the sidebar. So let’s go ahead and remove this. We can see it as no longer in my sidebar.

But when I go back over to my home folder, you’re going to see; I have my personal folder here again. So it does not remove the folder from your Mac. It just removes it from the sidebar. So that’s how we can add our own personal folders to decide by in a finder window. All we have to do is drag our folder that we want to add over to the sidebar.

We have to make sure that we do not drag it on top of another folder. Otherwise, you can move it into that other folder. We want to move it in between two folders; you’re going to see a thin horizontal line, a blue line. That is where it is going to place that folder to remove it or even rename it. You control, click on it and then you can remove it and rename it.

So that’s how we can add our own personal folders to the sidebar in a Finder window on the Mac.