File management is another one I'd like to add to the list of macOS screwups. How can viewing lists of files and moving them over from one place to another be so complicated?
Most annoying for me is there is no simple way to simply search for files matching a name in a folder.
Attempting to search using Finder insists on bringing up a giant system wide search that indexes content of files, emails, every stupid thing that contains anything like the phrase I looked for.
So imagine I am sharing my screen and I try to just find a simple file and it's spewing the contents of my private emails in front of everyone. So aggravating.
Well, if Finder is in the folder, and you enter a search, then I see three options reading to just search in the folder. It pops up between the command bar and the folder contents.
yeah ... I guess I don't think that is simple when I have to click extra options to get to it. But also, it still insists on searching within files. I ONLY want it to filter on the file name.
MacOS apparently caches directory views somewhere, and I can routinely get the "Downloads" folder to not actually show what is in the Downloads folder; often having to resort to "open" on the terminal to access the file. I wish I knew how to force it to refresh the actual contents instead of reading it from the cache.
Do you have that folder set to sort by something useful like “date added”? Then it should work. If you have it set to not sorted then maybe the file is lower on the list and off screen.
~\Downloads is always the first tab in Finder for me and I almost always keep it to show the most recently added files at the top.
I always do date added, and it sometimes doesn't show new files in the file picker view most commonly - and then I have to go somewhere else and back and it seems to refresh.
The other weirdness is sometimes a file gets updated (think "touch") and it won't change it's order in the list.
Most of the time it works fine. It's like inotify or whatever sometimes doesn't fire.
Ah, I almost never use the file picker. I tend to keep certain folders open in tabs in Finder and drag from them to the apps or to the file open dialogs. I tend to do a lot of work in a handful of folders and never liked the process of of “File Open….now navigate to that folder you were just using”.
What is complicated about it? I typically keep a handful of tabs open in Finder and drag and drop between them or to applications. You can also always do CMD-C and then either CMD-V to copy a file somewhere or OPT-CMD-V to move a file.
Not quit sure what you want but you can copy or drag path information from the “Path Bar” at the bottom of a finder window/tab. I do this all the time to get a path in terminal
