It’s easy to get lost and not know where you are or what directory you’re growing using the macOS Finder. There’s a little known feature called Path Bar that can make your life easier.
It’s a narrow strip near the bottom of a Finder window. It’s disabled by default; here’s how to enable it.
- Open a Finder window.
- Select Show Path Bar from the Finder View menu. (You’ll find it in the top left side of your screen).
- The Path Bar will now display in all of your Finder windows.
Double-clicking any of the folders in the Path Bar takes you to that folder. You can move files and folders to any item in the Path Bar via drag and drop.
You can copy items by holding down the Option key as you drag them. Or you can cate an alias to an item by holding down the Command + Option keys while you drag it.
You can even move folders around within the Path Bar. Drag a folder to the location in the path where you want it to be located.
The Path Bar also works in tandem with a Finder search. When the results of a search are displayed in the Finder, you can find out where an item is stored by choosing the item in the search results, then looking at the Path Bar to see where the item is stored on your Mac.
If you find you don’t use the Path Bar, you can disable it:
- Open a Finder window.
- Select Hide Path Bar from the View menu.
