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> This is one of the features I never miss and don't use on any other DE (like KDE). I just open the app, create the file and save. Maybe it's just habit, but I personally doesn't find it as a needed feature.

To give perspective, I do weekly. I work often files that I need to modify or create files that have no native apps with UI. Key files, certs, etc.

Also, its way easier when working to just create file in already open dir than go open a program and try to navigate to the dir you already are. Eg local web development, I'm 10 dir deep somewhere obscure place.

I'm on windows.

> Just drag it where you want while pressing CMD? I know it's not cut but it prevents a lot of errors I think.

Try making this trick work when your destination is three levels deep into a different hierarchy. Oh yes, you should have thought about it beforehand and opened two windows and pre-arranged them in a way so you can drag from one to another, because it's so intuitive! And yes, the metaphor of "take from one place, drop into other", which worked with documents, is completely broken, but somehow we pretend it still exists. And the worst thing - there's no reason for it to be this broken. It just is.

> It's called "Clean Up By". Available in right click menu and in the top menu probably.

I just checked, it's always greyed out on my finder. Who knows why, it's probably intuitive.

> Or just press back. It's parent folder 99% of the time.

Except no, it's the folder which you saw before that, which doesn't have to be parent at all.

> Try making this trick work when your destination is three levels deep into a different hierarchy. Oh yes, you should have thought about it beforehand and opened two windows and pre-arranged them in a way so you can drag from one to another, because it's so intuitive!

I regularly do this to be honest. I drag the file to my home or Dropbox folder and dive from there. I also regularly drag and drop files from finder to any other application, not just three folders, but three desktops away. It might not be OK or comfortable for you (which I understand), but writing with laser-cut assumptions and prejudice doesn't help.

> I just checked, it's always greyed out on my finder. Who knows why, it's probably intuitive.

If you're in list view, you can always click column headers, just like a particular Redmond OS allows to do. Also there's a sort by menu, which is operational in all views as I just checked. I think again a particular Redmond OS also calls this strange and magical ordering process the same.

macOS works differently, and it goes against some conventions on other OSes, I know. However, I don't get agitated by this, because how it's evolved and it's consistent in its own world. I actually like how it doesn't imitate anything else. It's same for Linux. Again backwards in some parts, but consistent in its universe of things.

The funny thing is, I booted my Windows disk this weekend for steam stuff and for keeping the OS up to date, and a lot of things felt backwards. However, this is again consistent in Windows universe and it's OK.

Again, I want to reiterate that, there's no one-and-only-one correct way to do things. We need to embrace this differences. This is what moves UI/UX research forward. I personally don't whine. Just adapt and love how quirky a UI is. If it's that broken, I patch it, or just submit bug reports.

From you repeated mentions of "Windows" I assume you somehow have the idea there's only two ways things could be - like they are in Windows and like they are on macOS. I haven't used Windows since.... oh my, I dunno, since XP was new and fresh? Maybe a bit later but not for a decade by now. But I've certainly have some habits from using various systems - including Windows. Which hasn't been very intuitive - nobody can say that the system where you click on "Start" to shut it down is intuitive - but at least they wouldn't be so arrogantly smug about being what they are not.

> I assume you somehow have the idea there's only two ways things could be...

No, I mentioned old UNIXen, Linux, and other OSes on my other comments. I do not bring them to table since Linux and other UNIXen Desktop Environments are much more flexible and can be customized to much greater extent, so if something feels wrong, it can be modified easily.

I put Windows vs. macOS because they're arguably the most popular consumer OSes on the market right now. Personally I don't use Windows unless I want to play some games (which happens twice a year at most) or need to manage my parents' computers.

I probably came accross as a macOS fanboy, but I'm actually not (honestly sorry about that). I just like the philosophy behind it and how fast and efficiently can work on that. I can work as efficiently on Linux too (and it's my primary OS on my workstations for ~20 years or so).

The thing I don't agree is labeling of any system of being incapable of something while it's certainly capable but this capability is built with a different design/philosophy and works somewhat differently. If these comments were about Windows, I'd be defending it and its heritage. If it was about Linux, I would certainly do the same with the same enthusiasm.

At the end of the day, it's not fanboyism about and OS, but a rather sympathy for the machine. Understanding how its innards work with as a result of different thinking and how one needs to be flexible and needs to look a little differently to the matter at hand, which is a very useful trait to have.

This is always the argument used by fanboys, "you're used to Windows crappy way". For them there's no way macOS can actually be suboptimal in its own ways, even without comparing it to something else.

I love Apple products and to be honest I generally like macOS too but these responses are ridiculous.

"Clean up by" is still a manual thing you have to do regularly? My downloads folder looks like a mess because files constantly get added/deleted from it via the Dock.

No, that's "Clean Up", which just aligns & tidies stuff a little. "Clean Up By" is automatic.

I generally disable "Clean Up By" because I love to visually group my folders for some types of folders. e.g.: Assets there, source files here, readme and docs to that corner, etc.

However, sometimes an orderly folder is required and I enable Clean Up By date for example. That folder is always sorted by date.

> No "parent folder"...

or CMD+UP

>> No "parent folder"...

> or CMD+UP

There's also a control that lets you jump to any ancestor directories, but it's not enabled by default.

> Just drag it where you want while pressing CMD? I know it's not cut but it prevents a lot of errors I think.

That requires you to have both places visible on the screen at the same time. It's also a mouse+keyboard interaction, the least usbale kind of interaction.

> That requires you to have both places visible on the screen at the same time.

You can drag a file across tabs, folders, dive in folders in finder, drag it across desktops and more.

> It's also a mouse+keyboard interaction, the least usbale kind of interaction.

I don't know you, but my left hand is on the keyboard all the time, and my thumb is on the command almost 99% percent of the time. It's just an instinct-like action for me.

Also, you can use cmd+opt+v it seems. TIL that.

No it doesn’t, Mac has spring loading for exactly this reason. This is a feature which has existed on Mac since before I OS X. Learn the system properly before assuming it is crap or simply ask.

You can use "move item here" (CMD + ALT + V) after you copy a file.

Speaking about discoverability, I've just found it a few minutes ago searching for "move" in the help menu.

That's right. Regarding your last point about two-finger clicking on the folder name to show the path, you can also go to "View > Show Path Bar".

That will show the full path along the bottom, and you can move to any parent folder by double-clicking on it--which is, perhaps, not exactly intuitive :-).

> It's called "Clean Up By". Available in right click menu and in the top menu probably.

And you cannot apply it to all folders across the entire system. Why they still haven't fixed tis, is beyond me.

You can. View menu --> Show View Options. Customize to how you want it, and click the "use as defaults" button.

I've seen people mention it on the internets for the past few years. I've never had this button on any MacOS version. Currently on Catalina: https://imgur.com/a/D9Kbob1

It's there: https://imgur.com/a/JVnaSjb

Try pressing cmd+j on a finder window.

Where do you think I pressed Cmd+J?

Sorry, I misread your comment and didn't see the link. I thought you've said that the options just don't exist.

When I checked on my El Capitan Mac (an Early 2008, non unibody MacBook Pro), opening my home folder in icon view and opening view options shows almost the exact screenshot I've shared on my previous comment, including "use as default button".

Moreover, any view except tri-column view produces a view options menu with "use as defaults" button. It has to be a real folder. All My Files is a view and is subject to different treatment. It may be the same with tri-column view because parent-sibling is blurred with multi-level view.

OMG :facepalm: I can't even begin to imagine who coded this, and why?!

Basically:

If you open a folder from a "shortcut" from the sidebar, and press Cmd+J, you get the barren options from the screenshot: https://imgur.com/3meteoB. And it doesn't matter if you keep clicking on other folders

Since I always use just a few folders linked from the sidebar, that's what I would always get.

To get to the "actual finder window", you have to select a folder, and press Cmd + Down to "open it". Visually, nothing changes. But the View Options do: https://imgur.com/EJuqWDC

It still doesn't have the "set as default", but, at the very least, it now looks more like your screenshot.

I'm literally at a loss for words.

Edit: more over, if you Cmd+Tab back, and your current folder is a subfolder of an item in the sidebar, the Cmd-J panel resets back to its barren view. Why?!!

Interesting. I never noticed that because I've always used List or Icons as the default view in Finder (Command+1 and Command+2).

Personally, I'd recommend just not using the Column view. It seems pretty janky compared to the other options.

For what it's worth, Command+[ and Command+] will move back/forward between folders, just like Safari and elsewhere.

Holding down Shift with those commands will move between tabs in Finder.

I don't even understand how you got to that "barren view". I've never seen that in my life.

Edit: I guess that "barren view" only happens when viewing things as "columns" mode. I just figured out how to make it look like yours. I always use list mode (as I often want to see/sort by date modified time or file type and I want to see file sizes). Columns view seems like a waste of screen real estate.

It has nothing to do with the sidebar. In column view it doesn't know what folder you're viewing so there's no display settings it can set because that's a per-folder option.

Edit2: I see your "less barren" options now, but it's still missing several options. And you don't need to do "Cmd+down", you can just double click a folder. This presumably forces it into understanding you're talking about a specific folder so it can display additional options.

Also it doesn't even appear to work, those extra options showing up is apparently a bug as none of the options change anything.

Haha. This is getting curioser and curioser :)

Finder is seriously broken