The macOS Finder has always offered a way to get information about selected files, folders, and applications. However, Get Info is an oft overlooked or unknown command in the File menu.

As a result, users miss out on opportunities to learn about important item details, like size and default application, and to compare single or groups of files to each other.

In Are You a Finder or a Keeper?, I mentioned using Get Info to specify the default app to open a file, and I differentiated between the Info and Inspector windows in Hidden Options.

However, this is the first article dedicated to the whole Get Info experience. And it seems especially appropriate for me to release it on Command Day, the only imperative on the calendar.

Get Info

To get information about a single item in the Finder, select it and choose File > Get Info or press Command+I. This will reveal a window with a number of sections containing a variety of details about the item.

For example, the above screenshot shows info about three items on my Mac: a song, a picture, and a PDF. The summary at the top includes the file name, modification date, and size. Then, the General section lists the type of file, its precise size and location, and when it was created and modified.

More Info provides additional metadata about an item, sometimes dependent on the type of file and what was included by the application that created or saved it:

  • For the song, there’s the song title, duration, artist, genre, etc.
  • For the photo, there are dimensions, camera make and model, and other photographic features
  • For the PDF, there are things like the creator, page length, and whether the document is password protected

Near the bottom is Open with, where you can choose what application should open the file. If you change this, you can then click Change All… to make this the “default application” for all files of this type.

For example, depending on your needs, preferences, or expectations, you might tell the Finder to always open a PDF in Preview instead of Acrobat Reader or to open audio files in QuickTime Player instead of Music.

Get Summary

I recently learned about a feature of Get Info that’s been around for decades. To get info on two or more items in a single window that summarizes their content, hold Control and choose File > Get Summary Info or press Control+Command+I.

The result is a shorter window as there are fewer information categories that apply to all the items. I mostly use these info summaries to compare sizes of multiple item groups.

For example, if you have two folders with overlapping contents, you might select a group of items in each folder and use Summary Info to compare the size of each group side by side.

Show Inspector

The Inspector is a tool I’ve long used to summarize groups of items, especially when I’m trying to identify what items are taking up inordinate space on a drive. Inspector’s secret is that it operates as a “utility window,” meaning its contents change dynamically depending on what is selected.

Select or deselect any item in the Finder, hold Option, and choose File > Show Inspector or press Command+Option+I. Then, select or multi-select items and see how the summary info changes.

If you multi-select items and Get Info, you’ll probably separate Info windows for each item. Depending on the number you select and the performance of your Mac, it might take a moment to show all these windows.

In macOS Sonoma, the threshold appears to be 80. That is, select more than 80 items and Finder will automatically show a Summary Info window instead. However, I can’t think of a benefit to seeing separate Info windows for more than a few items at a time.

If you happen to end up with too many windows on the screen, you can hold Command+W to close them sequentially and somewhat quickly or press Command+Option+W to close them all at once. You’ll find these commands in the File menu, too, while not holding or holding the Option key, respectively.

What information do you discover in various Info windows in the Finder? What new tasks are you able to accomplish with this power and flexibility? Learn more in this Apple support article.