Now move the pointer to the right edge of the list of folder contents, just far enough to the left to avoid moving the window divider, but not so far as to fully select items from within that folder. Click there and the item will be selected, but in grey, the same as would appear if it had been fully selected but its window was no longer in focus. At this stage, the original folder will still be fully highlighted, as if nothing had been selected inside it, but you can drag that grey unfocussed selection to include other items inside the folder.
On my Mac, if I click on a file icon in the second column, the first column retains focus. The second column only gets focus if I click on a filename (or even farther to the right).
Now using the up and down arrow keys doesn’t move within the items inside that folder, but back with the fully highlighted folder. With a few of the items inside that folder in grey, so they’re selected but not in focus, press the spacebar for a QuickLook preview, and you’ll see the greyed items, not the folder that’s still fully selected to the left.
[…]
In other situations, this becomes infuriating.
In my log browser LogUI, separation of selection from focus can leave you clicking wildly without being able to select log entries.
I too was wondering if there was something peculiar with my Mac. Focus seems so broken in Golden Gate that I was expecting macOS reviews to mention it. In this regard, I am glad to see focus problems mentioned here.
The behaviour seems inconsistent. For example, in Finder and Mail the sidebar does not gain focus on click, but it does in Contacts and NetNewsWire (a third-party app). The Passwords app seems like the worst offender: the password list itself does not gain focus on click (e.g. click the search field then click an item and focus remains in the search field).
I spent some time investigating this, and I think it comes down to a SwiftUI bug. List and Table in SwiftUI are affected. Both use NSTableView under the hood, but they never become first responder on click.
But I don’t think NSBrowser is built on SwiftUI, so there are probably multiple issues here.
One of the most bizarre and sometimes useful features added in macOS 27 Golden Gate is contextual naming in the Finder, as well as other places where a name for a file is useful, using Apple Intelligence.1 I say bizarre because it’s easy to be surprised by what’s filled in—or that anything but Untitled Document or Untitled Folder appears.
Meanwhile, if you want to rename a big batch of files, you can opt for a little-known feature built right into the Finder, or dramatically increase your power with a third-party utility.
Apple Intelligence has some suggestions
Three examples of file renaming suggestions in Golden Gate, showing options for font files, an image of Kilroy Was Here spray-painted on a door, and a Take Control book.
There’s not much to using Golden Gate’s automatic file naming, which is the delight of a feature that’s discoverable, self-explanatory, and useful:
Select a file name or folder name in the Finder, wait a moment, and single-click it, so that the name becomes highlighted.
Wait a moment. Because Apple Intelligence is involved, some behind-the-scenes analysis of the item’s contents takes place.
A drop-down list of suggestions appears, which may or may not match what you want. If one does, click it. This replaces the file or folder name.
You will also see suggestions appear in Apple’s apps when you save a currently untitled document, as well as when you transfer files via AirDrop or text an image to a person or group. I’ve noticed when I text a screenshot on my iPhone, the name “Screen Image” appears in the message text without any detail.
As you can imagine, results vary. However, I’ve found in my testing that Apple Intelligence does a reasonably good job. This includes looking at what a photo or image file represents and suggesting a name derived from that—a kind of hidden Visual Intelligence.
If you don’t like this feature, go to Finder: Settings: General and uncheck “Suggest file names.”
It has a number of limitations:
Names aren’t always suggested. This may be because Apple Intelligence has evaluated that the current name is better than one it could offer, or because the query times out or is determined to take too much computational time.
There’s no feedback when it fails—no message appears that says “no suggestions available,” or the like.
It doesn’t always use the current name as a context clue or, seemingly, pull from our private information to which Apple Intelligence has access. For instance, I clicked a file called “glenn as a freshman,” a photo taken long ago and far away, and the Finder suggestions were: “Person with Hand on Head” and “Person in Thought Pose.” Not inaccurate, but not specific. However, a folder I clicked offered suggestions derived from the folder name.
Images with controversial elements may not receive suggestions. A picture of my older child from 15 years ago, dressed in a lobster costume that many people thought was a devil costume, gets no suggestions, while other photos of the same type, size, and time period do.
You can’t get suggestions for a batch of files or folders, only one at a time.
Batch rename your files and folders
Apple introduced a built-in automatic renaming feature in Finder with OS X 10.10 Yosemite. It’s limited, but functional, and if you only need some basic replacing, prefixing, or suffixing of names of a group of files, it will do the trick for free.
The standard macOS “Rename Finder Items” dialog configured to apply a custom name and sequential index to files.
Long before Apple built basic renaming into Finder, I began to rely on A Better Finder Rename ($30 for all current version updates) by Frank Reiff.2 It lets you apply rules to rename files or folders you select, which can include extracting information from metadata in each file to apply unique information from it.3
A Better Finder Rename offers multi-step rewriting of file and folder names based on tags or conditions. Here, I’m adding the camera model and shooting year tags to files that only have date stamps.
Each renaming pattern is created in the Actions list. So if you want to renumber files and apply EXIF metadata, you can do that as two separate Actions, as shown in the screenshot.
There are many Actions categories, each of which has context-specific choices for renaming. I’ve used A Better Finder Rename in the past to fix a folder with hundreds of images that were named arbitrarily to extract the capture date, allowing for better sorting. I’ve also used it for picayune tasks, like making sure all the screenshots for an article for Six Colors had the same prefix, to make them easier to find after uploading.
A Better Finder Rename has many categories to choose from (and concatenate together as Actions) at left; options for the Text category at right.
What’s in a name?
In an era in which Spotlight works as advertised, coupled with the new capabilities in Siri AI, do we even need well-named files? Oh, yes, indeed. I would argue that the more sensibly named your files are, the less time you waste trying to find what you need. Visually scanning names organized at least lightly into some kind of folder hierarchy will always provide better results than searching, even today.
This battle has raged since the introduction of the Mac—nay, since the introduction of file names! Good names save time, no matter how well-indexed the contents.
[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use/glennin our subscriber-only Discord community.]
All Macs that can run Golden Gate are capable of Apple Intelligence, which requires an Apple silicon Mac (any generation). ↩
It was introduced in 1996! Happy 30th anniversary, Frank! Version 12, the current release, first shipped in 2023. ↩
Jason, the editor of this site, instead relies on a similar long-serving utility, the $19 Name Mangler from Many Tricks. ↩
But something has changed: thanks to AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, even the most devoted GUI fans are now spending more and more time in the terminal. You kick off a task, the agent does its thing… and then you want to actually see what happened.
That’s where Tower shines, so we felt the path from the terminal to Tower deserved a serious upgrade. With Tower 18, the Tower Command Line Tool (gittower) is no longer just a way to open a repository — it takes you to exactly the place you want to look at.
I’ve been wanting this for 15 years or so. Thanks, AI! You still can’t open a file in Tower by dragging it onto the Dock icon. Nor can you just pass it to gittower and have it figure out which repo it belongs to. But if your working directory is already within the working copy, you can now use gittower to open the file history. I’ve written a script that finds the current file in the frontmost app (BBEdit, Xcode, or Finder) and opens it in Tower.
You can show hidden files on Mac with a simple keyboard shortcut. You do not need Terminal, an administrator password, or advanced technical knowledge for the most common method.
macOS hides some files because they contain settings, app information, or system resources that people do not normally need to open. These items remain on the Mac, but Finder does not display them during regular use.
You may need to see them when following troubleshooting instructions, opening the hidden Library folder, managing website files, checking app settings, or finding data left behind by an uninstalled application. Once the files are visible, you should avoid deleting anything unless you understand its purpose.
Show Hidden Files Without Terminal
Finder has a built-in shortcut that reveals hidden files and folders instantly. It is the fastest method when you only need temporary access.
To show hidden files in the current Finder folder:
Finder > Open Any Folder > Command + Shift + Period (.)
The period is the regular full-stop key on the keyboard. You must press Command, Shift, and Period at the same time.
The folder will update immediately. Hidden items normally appear lighter or more transparent than regular files. This visual difference helps you recognize files that macOS does not usually display.
The shortcut works in most Finder locations, including the user’s Home folder and some folders on external drives. It can also work inside the Open and Save windows presented by Mac applications.
If you do not see any changes, try the shortcut inside your Home folder. The available hidden items depend on the apps and services used on the Mac.
To open your Home folder:
Finder > Go > Home
After the Home folder opens, use the hidden-file shortcut again. You may see items with names that begin with a period, including configuration folders created by applications.
Files beginning with a period are commonly called dot files. macOS and Unix-based applications use them to store settings and other information without filling normal folders with technical data.
The Finder shortcut acts as a visibility switch. Using it a second time conceals the files again.
To hide the files after you finish:
Finder > Open Any Folder > Command + Shift + Period (.)
Hiding the files does not delete them. Finder simply returns to its normal view.
Image Credit: AppleMagazine
Open the Hidden Library Folder
The user Library is one of the most frequently accessed hidden folders on a Mac. It stores app preferences, browser information, caches, containers, saved states, Mail resources, and other data connected to the signed-in account.
You can open the Library directly without making every hidden file visible.
To open your personal Library folder:
Finder > Go > Press and Hold Option > Library
The Library option appears in the Go menu while you hold the Option key. Select Library before releasing the key.
This method opens the Library belonging to the current user. Its path is ~/Library, where the tilde represents the user’s Home folder.
The user Library is different from the Library folder located at the top level of the startup disk. The top-level folder contains resources that can be shared by different accounts, while ~/Library primarily contains information for the current account.
Deleting content from the Library can reset an app or remove locally stored information. If troubleshooting instructions tell you to remove a file, confirm its name and location before making any changes.
Open a Specific Hidden Folder
Finder includes a Go to Folder feature for opening locations that are difficult to find manually. It is useful when you know the folder’s exact path and do not want to reveal every hidden item.
To open the Go to Folder field:
Finder > Go > Go to Folder
You can also reach the same field with a keyboard shortcut.
To open Go to Folder from the keyboard:
Finder > Shift + Command + G
A small field will appear. Type or paste the path of the location you want to open, then press Return.
To open your personal Library:
Go to Folder > Enter ~/Library > Press Return
To open the hidden SSH folder in your Home folder:
Go to Folder > Enter ~/.ssh > Press Return
The .ssh folder stores information used by Secure Shell tools. It may not exist if SSH software has never created it on the Mac. Finder displaying an error for this path does not necessarily indicate a problem.
To open the Library shared by all users:
Go to Folder > Enter /Library > Press Return
Pay attention to the beginning of each path. ~/Library opens the Library inside the current user’s Home folder. /Library opens the shared Library at the top level of the startup disk.
You can also paste a longer path supplied by an app developer or support technician. Check the spelling carefully because similarly named folders may contain completely different data.
Image Credit: AppleMagazine
Show Hidden Files With Terminal
Terminal can change Finder’s hidden-file preference so concealed items remain visible until you change the setting again. This option is helpful during longer troubleshooting or development sessions.
Terminal is included with macOS and can be opened from the Utilities folder.
To open Terminal:
Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal
A Terminal window will appear with a text prompt. Enter the command exactly as presented and press Return.
To keep hidden files visible in Finder:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true && killall Finder
Finder will close briefly and reopen. This restart allows the new visibility preference to take effect.
The command does not change the files themselves. It tells Finder to display items that macOS normally conceals.
You can reverse the change at any time.
To hide the files in Finder again:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false && killall Finder
Finder will restart once more and return to its regular view.
If Finder does not behave as expected after changing the preference, you can remove the custom value. macOS will then use its default behavior.
To remove the custom hidden-file preference:
defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles && killall Finder
Terminal may say that the preference does not exist if no custom value is stored. That message simply means there is no setting to remove.
See Hidden Files Only in Terminal
Terminal can list hidden files without making them appear in Finder. This can be helpful when checking whether a file exists while leaving Finder unchanged.
The ls command displays the contents of a folder. Adding -a includes hidden items, while -l displays details such as permissions, ownership, file size, and modification date.
To list visible and hidden items in your Home folder:
ls -la ~
The results appear inside Terminal. Names beginning with a period are hidden during normal Finder use.
To list the contents of the folder currently open in Terminal:
ls -la
These commands only display information. They do not delete or modify the files shown in the results.
Work Safely With Hidden Mac Files
A hidden file is not automatically unnecessary, suspicious, or safe to delete. macOS and installed applications conceal many items to protect settings and reduce clutter.
The .DS_Store file, for example, can store Finder display information for a folder. External drives may include folders such as .Trashes and .Spotlight-V100, which macOS uses for Trash and Spotlight features.
Removing the wrong item can reset an application, delete local information, interrupt syncing, or cause macOS to rebuild a database. Copy an item to a safe location before changing it when troubleshooting instructions require manual file work.
Some system folders remain protected even when Finder displays them. Showing hidden files does not bypass administrator permissions or System Integrity Protection. There is no need to disable Mac security features simply to view a hidden folder.
Applications can also contain internal resources. These files are stored inside an app bundle and are different from standard hidden files.
To view the internal contents of an application:
Finder > Applications > Control-click the App > Show Package Contents
Changing files inside an app bundle can prevent the application from opening. If you need one of its resources, copy that file elsewhere instead of editing the original.
When you finish working, return Finder to its regular view to reduce the chance of accidentally moving or deleting a configuration file.
To hide all revealed files with the Finder shortcut:
Finder > Open Any Folder > Command + Shift + Period (.)
When you are shell scripting or working in Terminal, sometimes you want a quicker way to enter the path to a file or folder, particularly if you have already navigated to it in the Finder. One way that works in Terminal is to drag the file or folder from the Finder onto the Terminal window, which then types the path into the current command. However, another method was introduced in El Capitan (OS X 10.11) that allows you to copy the full path onto the clipboard.
In Finder, you can hold down Option and choose Edit ‣ Copy Pathname.
Starting in macOS Sequoia, copying the path to the clipboard using the method described generates a path that can be directly pasted into the Terminal or a script and be interpreted as that path without further manipulation.
It adds single quotes and or escapes characters, but only if necessary.
Graham Pugh pointed out that if you have text on the clipboard, you have the option of pasting that text “escaped” in Terminal. Simply copy the text from whatever source you choose (e.g., the output of an AutoPkg run, where paths are not escaped), then in Terminal choose Edit > Pasted Escaped Text or use the shortcut Command-Control-V.
[…]
As a bonus, this concept can be applied to a tip I learned from Armin Briegel a few years ago, namely that if you select something in Terminal that you want to then paste into the current shell command, you can skip the copy-paste dance and instead just press Command-Shift-V to do it in one step (or if you prefer menus, Edit > Paste Selection). If you add the Control key to that sequence, the text pasted is escaped (Edit > Paste Escaped Selection or Command-Control-Shift-V).
But I also want to show things that Finder does well, and this might be something no one does nearly as thoughtfully: text truncation.
[…]
Finder position the tooltip exactly atop the existing text. I think this is really clever: it avoids overlapping other useful information, and makes it faster to reorient yourself.
[…]
Lastly, Finder only shows the tooltip when it’s needed.
[… Apple] decides to do a big feature. The circus comes to town, they build the feature, they launch it, they leave town, and that feature sits there.
And the problem is, there’s bugs, things are broken, and in Year Two, you’re like, “You’re going to fix all the things that were broken in the thing you shipped last year, right?” And in the last decade, I would say, a lot of times what happens is they just don’t. And if you’re lucky, they’ll fix it Year Three or Year Four, […] give it a polish.
The thing that troubles me most about Apple software quality in general is the feeling like they don’t have the people to own the thing that they launch. They build the thing that they launch, and then those people go off and do something else, and nobody is maintaining and improving the thing that’s there.
I think this is spot on, and said really well. Are you honest with yourself about resourcing and focus for right after the launch and then later on? Have you really thought about worst case and best case scenarios vis-à-vis bug reports, latency, user feedback, and craft/quality however you define it? Have you actually started to make room for those outcomes ahead of time?
For me, an ongoing tension with Apple is Finder, so central to my (and I imagine many people’s?) use of a Mac, but rewritten at some point eons ago in a new framework that caused all sorts of problems, and then pretty much abandoned like a proverbial American city’s downtown.
Revealing files in the Finder and Mail’s table view sort indicators have been broken for me since Big Sur. Disk Utility still doesn’t work as well as before its El Capitan rewrite. But these aren’t even big new features.
The issue really, that Jason pins down, is that it’s so easy to use incremental development, agile development, sprints, whatever, as a method to do the wrong thing. If you have a year-long schedule, it is easier to say “I will take care of the Finder”, and within the scope of that is a number of features that need be built, but there’s also room for ongoing maintenance. Within the confines of sprint planning, within a culture that sheepishly focuses on the wrong thing, or is obsessed by following the wrong number, or worries about the internal politics of appearing to not have it together, all of a sudden the same work, scheduled into 3 week long sprints, looks like poison.
I know of plenty of organizations that make this work. That have the maturity and discipline and culture to see bugs and defects for what they are, to allocate plenty of time to them and to focus extra time on them with regular intervals.
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