In Desktop Reflection, I shared my two cents on how to make your digital desktop mimic your physical desktop, including consolidating items, organizing files in folders, forcing icons to align in a grid, and allowing them to be stacked with like items.

The Desktop is essentially a gigantic, borderless Finder window in Icon view. Now, let’s take a look at an actual Finder window and explore ways to view and sort items within. For all commands herein, look in the View menu.

Icons & Columns & Lists, Oh My!

In a Finder window, three primary views have been available since Mac OS X was released in 2001: Icon, List, and Column. In 2012, OS X Lion added Cover Flow and in 2019, macOS Mojave replaced this with Gallery. For now, I’ll focus on the first three:

  • Icon view  matches the Desktop experience. The Finder displays items in grid with names below or to the right of an icon. Names can be 10–16 points and icons can be 16–512 pixels square, as specified in View Options. The shortcut for Icon view is Command+1.
  • List view  shows items in a vertical list where headed columns have additional information like dates and file size. There are two icon size options and names can be 10–16 points. The shortcut for List view is Command+2.
  • Column view  arranges items in columns where selecting a folder reveals its contents in the next column over and clicking a file shows informational details in a Preview column. Names can be 10–16 points but there are no size choices for icons. The shortcut for Column view is Command+3.

More Options

In any view, an easy way to find out where you are in your hierarchy is to show the Path Bar. Additionally, the Status Bar can be useful to know how many items are in the current view, how many are selected, and/or how much storage space is left on the current volume.

Finally, in any of these views you can show or hide the Preview column, which is most conducive in a taller window and provides quick access to rotation and markup commands for images.

As you navigate your file system, opening a folder will generally display its contents using the same view as was shown for its parent folder. However, you can force any particular folder to always open in a particular view by showing View Options and toggling the checkbox at the top (e.g., “Always open in list view”).

Sorting & Grouping

In any view, items can be sorted and/or grouped, such as by name, date modified, or kind. When sorting, all items are listed together in the specified order, alphabetically or chronologically. When grouping, similar items are aggregated in labeled groups.

When Use Groups is enabled in the View menu, the Sort By commands will disappear. However, they are still available in View Options.

Interacting With a List

To sort items in List view, you can click the column header that specifies the detail by which you want to sort. Click again to reverse the sort order. To rearrange columns, just drag them left or right.

If you don’t see the column you want, you can still sort using the Sort By command in the View menu. You can also add or remove a column using View Options or by selecting from the contextual menu when you right-click or Control+click on a column header.

To Disclose or Not to Disclose…

Except when using Groups, folders in List view provide a disclosure triangle with which you can reveal their contents in place rather than fully opening the folder in the window. To expand or contract all subfolders within a given folder, hold Option when clicking the disclosure triangle.

How do you like to arrange your Finder items? Do you like to view some folders one way and others differently?