MacOS uses access to manage files. Many novices find access to the default interface display and function logic difficult to use. There are a few things we can do to make it work better. Here’s a little bit of my experience.
Change the position displayed when opened by default
By default, when “Access” is enabled, the recently modified or opened files are displayed. But the interface can feel a bit messy.
We can turn on the call preference setting (either from the call window menu bar or by pressing command-comma). In General, set “Open when New Access window opens” to a different location, such as my current personal user file directory. It can also be set to desktop, Documents, iCloud cloud disk, or another specified folder.
This will default to the location you set when you open access later.
Adjust the sidebar
To the left of the access window is the “sidebar”.
Still access preference Settings, click on the “sidebar”, here it is recommended to check the individual user file directory. It will then show up in my favorites in the Visit sidebar. This makes it easy to quickly open your user folder. You can also add “pictures”, “movies” and so on.
You can also manually drag and drop a folder into the sidebar’s “Personal Favorites” and it will stay there as a shortcut. Great for some of the folders that we open a lot.
If you feel that the default sidebar icon and text display is a little too small or too large, you can change the sidebar icon size in system Easy Setup – General. Note, however, that this is a global change. This means that the sidebar ICONS in other apps will also be changed.
In addition, if you want to adjust the order of the ICONS in the sidebar, just drag.
Like it’s no big deal? Don’t worry, keep reading ~ 🐶
Customize toolbars
Right-click or two Pointers on the toolbar above the access window to display “Customize Toolbar”. You can add, replace, or set the spacing between tools as you like.
By default, only ICONS are displayed on the toolbar. If you do not understand the meanings of ICONS, you can select ICONS and Text on the toolbar. But I prefer to just display it as an icon, so it looks cleaner.
In addition, holding down the Command key and dragging the tool can adjust the position of the tools in the toolbar.
Search from the current folder
We click on the search box in the upper right corner of the access window and enter a keyword to search for results from the entire Mac disk by default. If you want to search only from the currently open folder location by default, select Search current folder when performing search in Access Preference Settings – Advanced. This not only makes the search more accurate, but also faster.
If you want to temporarily search the entire Mac disk, you can enter the search term and click “This Mac” on the left to display more complete results.
If you want to search for a certain type of file but can’t remember the name of the file, for example a PDF file, you can type PDF in the search box and click “Type” to find all the PDF files for that location. You can also make your search more precise by clicking on the plus sign below the search box to set your search criteria.
Sort and sort
Another problem for new Mac users is the arrangement of files in the access folder. Because by default we can manually place any file or folder location. But it’s easy to get messy. And when the access window shrinks, some files are “hidden” in their original locations, requiring you to drag the scroll bar to see them.
Here we need to understand the concepts of “collation” and “sorting” in macOS. Many people probably know these two Settings, but are not quite sure how they differ and under what circumstances they are used.
“Rearrange” can be based on the current layout of the file so that the arrangement of the original general position, but also some alignment, so that the file looks less messy. For example, separate some overlapping files. However, if the distance between files is too large, it will still be large after sorting.
Organize allows you to arrange all files in a regular order, but you can still move a file or folder back to another place. And when the window size changes, the file does not automatically adjust. It’s still in the same position.
Oh, and you can do this quickly by using the command-option shortcut to add numbers. Command-option-1, for example, is collated by file name.
Here I prefer to use “sort” display. We can sort all the items in the folder by name, type, size, date added, and so on. ** If we drag an item to another location, it will not be moved. And items are automatically aligned when the window size changes. ** So that no matter how you move it, it looks neat. And once the sorting mode is set, the “sorting” and “sorting mode” on the menu options are no longer visible.
Organizing and sorting are two different ideas. The “collation” arrangement is static, allowing people to decide where an item will be placed. It’s flexible, but it’s also easy to look messy. And the “sort” arrangement is dynamic, is completely given to the Mac to arrange according to the agreed rules.
I personally prefer “sort” to “organize.”
If you want all open folders to be displayed in “sort” by default, this is the global “sort” setting. You can open “View Display options” in the access menu. Then select a sorting method and click the “Use as Default” button at the bottom. So that no matter which folder you open again, no matter how the window size is adjusted, the files inside will be neatly lined up.
After setting global collation, you can use collation in a single folder or with different collation rules. Does not affect the global collation of other folders.
Icon is displayed
If you want the file ICONS in the folder to appear smaller or larger, you can change them by command-minus or command-plus.
Another way is to open the “view display options” under the current folder, you can set the icon size, in addition to grid spacing, text size and position, whether to show preview and file introduction can be set.
For example, if you select “Show file introduction”, you can directly see the size of the picture, the length of the video, the number of files in the folder and other information.
This setting will only change the display in the current folder, not other folders.
If you want all open folders to be displayed the same way. You can click “Use as Default” after setting.
Display status bar and path bar
Click the “display” on the access menu, select “display path bar”, will display the current folder path location in the bottom line of the window. You can also copy a path by right-clicking or double-clicking on it.
Click “show” on the access menu, select “show status bar”, will display some status information of the current folder in the bottom line of the window. For example, how many files (projects) are in the folder, how many files are currently selected, and free disk space.
According to preview
There are now access Windows above, below and to the left. If you want to use the right side, you can display a preview on the right side. In the access menu – Show, click “Show Preview”. The default display is blank. Clicking on any file or folder in the folder will display the details of that file (folder) in the preview area on the right.
Such as folder size, creation and modification time. The size of the picture, etc. Open “preview options”, you can also choose to display the image color space, Exif information, location information and so on. This is especially handy when viewing images folders.
Access is probably the most open application we use with macOS. I believe that through the above Settings, you will be able to visit more in line with your usage habits, while improving the use of efficiency.