Ask HN: OS X folks – do you use Finder?

I'm curious, what is so bad about Finder?

Yes, I use Finder, since Puma. I also put in considerable hours using Windows Explorer. I personally find neither significantly better or worse than the other.

I use Finder and I don't understand what people don't like about it.

SMB is slow for me on Mountain Lion, so Windows file shares are annoying. But that's not Finder's fault.

Finder can be tamed if you master its keyboard shortcuts. For example, in a folder of photos, press Cmd+Y to view a single photo. Then use arrow keys to browse photos, Windows-style. Indispensable.

Or, Cmd+Backspace to delete a file.

Everyday. I'm heavily using photos in my line of work so it's necessary.

Yes, I've never had any issues with it. I pretty much only use it when I'm going to my PDF's directory.

(I know you said not to, but for pretty much every file operation, I use the terminal.)

Cocoatech's Path Finder - I love it.

I have a pet peeve. I have setup OSX to show the hidden and dotfiles. So, everywhere I go using finder (say mounted drives), I get that .DS_Store file. Is there a way to avoid seeing that in the list?

The major (and really only) criticism of Finder is a lack of an "address" bar. I would really like a bar where I can change directories quickly instead of doing ALL navigation using mouse clicks. Yes, I know you can invoke a Command-Shift-G to do this in a secondary menu, but Explorer has this built in. Having an address bar with tab completion and unix file-system shortcut support (i.e. "~", ".", "..") would be great!

I use totalfinder on OSX to make up for a lot of finder's defeciencies.

Combo of Quicksilver + Finder + knowing the keyboard shortcuts works ok for me. Quicksilver partially covers for the lack of address-bar – CMD+Space and type the name of the folder you want to go to. I suppose Spotlight can serve the same purpose, but the killer app for me is moving files. I find the column-browse mode vastly superior to the others. Quicklook helps a lot. Ditto tabs.

For a sort of online alternative to the finder, check out: http://are.na/.

I'm roughly 50/50 using Finder or Terminal.

You haven't said what about Finder you don't like, so I've got no suggestions for you. For me, it does the job just fine. (Is it possible that you're just more accustomed to Windows?)

I use path finder, i find it way more powerful and useful than finder. http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/

I'm also in the "what's wrong with Finder?" crowd. I find Explorer to be cluttered and harder to use, especially when it comes to drag and drop support.

I did turn on a couple neat dock modes with Mountain Tweaks[1] and installed some quick look plugins for security certs and archive files but that's about it.

[1] http://tweaksapp.com

I use TotalFinder. $20, worth every penny. Solved every problem I had with Finder.

Here's a nice tool to add more value to the Finder:

https://github.com/jbtule/cdto/releases

Add the app to the Finder toolbar then whenever you're in a folder and you want to open a terminal/iterm window in that folder just click the icon.

Also, when you're in a terminal window and you want to open a Finder window in that directory just run the command:

$ open .

Tip: In Mavericks you have to hold command+option to drag an app into the toolbar. I forget the key combo for dragging it to the toolbar in Yosemite, I want to say either just command or no key combo is required.

Somewhat related to this topic why is there not way (at least intuitively through cmd-x cmd-v) to cut-and-copy a file? I find it mind boggling.

I love the Miller columns, the preview column and QuickLook. I hate the lack of an address bar and to be able to jump to a terminal directly. For the second issue I use a shortcut that cds the path of the front-most Finder window using AppleScript. You can have QuickLook in the terminal too by the way:

    # Quicklook given file
    ql () {
    	qlmanage -p $* 2>/dev/null
    }

And one tweak I often use is that I have mapped Ctrl-Shift-t to the "Tags..." menu entry which can be done in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > + > Application=Finder, Menu Title=Tags...

You can have something like cd .. in Finder using Cmd-up and cd - is Cmd-[. When you Cmd-click the icon in the window title bar you can see the whole path, which I use a lot too. Finally, I use Cmd-2 and Cmd-3 to switch between column and list view.

I too use PathFinder. It's definitely the best Finder replacement one out there.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but I didn't learn about Cmd+Down (open file/folder) and Cmd+Up (go to parent dir) in Finder until recently. This has completely changed my productivity in Finder since I can now navigate quickly without the mouse. I used to hate Finder a lot more before I knew this.

I use Finder constantly. That said, I use an extension called Default Folder (which I've been using since long before Mac OS X) which not only works around many of its shortcomings, but is almost impossible to live without. E.g. if you have a Finder window open in the background, when you are in an file dialog you can focus it on that window by clicking on it in the background, it remembers where you were in a given folder (and which folder you were in for each application), and so forth. It also gives you access to most of Finder's functionality from inside file dialogs (which is something I do miss from Windows).

I don't find Finder "awful" compared to Windows Explorer — quite the reverse in general. But if you're not used to the Mac's keyboard navigation standards (which have remained largely consistent since 1986 or so (i.e. HFS)) you may not realize it. First -- list view is the best view. Second -- the same keystrokes work in list view and in file dialogs.

I like using the keyboard so I forked an awesome console column based file browser and gave it fancy OSX features:

https://github.com/trishume/macranger

It's not quite ready for other people yet, it requires around 4 different components to work nicely, only 2 of which are public.

I only moved to Mac this year. The one thing that annoys me about finder is the inability to back-swipe. File browser, web browser - they should work the same way, no?

I really miss the Start Menu on the Mac. To get close to what I want, I have dragged the Applications folder to the dock next to the Downloads folder, and I've set it to display as a Folder (vs. a Stack) and as a List (vs. Automatic).

Only for interacting with photos. Normally, I just use terminal :).