Hi, this Gary with MacMost.com. Today it's all about using the Preview Pane
in the Mac Finder Window.
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So the Preview Pane is what you see in the Finder on the right side of the window. Usually you see
it in Column View. In Column View you've got columns that show you files and folders and when
you select a file, like this one, you'll see a preview of it on the right. It's called the
Preview Pane because subdivisions of a window are called panes, you know like window panes.
Now while by default you should see a preview pane when you're in Column View you won't see it
in other finder views like Icon View or List View. But it's actually available in all views. Just go
to View and then Show Preview and that brings up the Preview Pane in any Finder view that you want.
Often people enable this, bring up the preview here,
and then forget how to turn it off. You just go back to View and then Hide Preview to get
rid of it. Now with it On in List or Icon View you can extend the size of the Preview Pane by
clicking and dragging the line between the main Finder window content and the Preview
Pane. Note that there's a keyboard shortcut to make it easy to turn this On and Off.
So it's Shift Command P. You can use that to quickly get rid of it or bring it back.
So what do you find in the Preview Pane. Well, a lot more than just a preview but you do see
that. In this case I have an image file selected so I see a preview of that file. We'll look at
different ways to use this preview in a minute. Under that you'll see the file name which is the
full file name which isn't a big deal unless you have a long file name and you don't have
enough room over here to be able to see it. It's nice to be able to select it and then see the
full file name there. Note that the file name here is editable. So I can click in it and you
could see now I could rename the file by using this file name here instead of the one in List,
Icon, or Column View. Under that you'll see the type of image. In this case it's a jpeg
and the size. Then you'll see more information under that.
Now what information you see depends on your settings and also the type of file.
Usually you'll see a list of dates first. There are various different dates for a file. So if
you want to know the date or time for a file you need to be more specific. You've got the time that
the file was created. You also have the last time it was modified and the last time it was opened.
Sometimes these will be one and the same but a lot of times these will be different. Now what you see
after that depends on the type of file. So, for instance, for an image here I see dimensions and
resolution. Then under that you can see Tags. Tags also are editable. I haven't set any tags for this
file but I can click right here and easily add some. Then below that you'll see Quick Actions.
Quick Actions are little buttons that allow you to do things to the file
without actually opening them inbox an app. What you see here is going to depend on what type of
file you've selected. So for an image file I have Rotate Left and Go To Markup Tools to markup the
image. But I can access those without having to open them up in any application. I can just click
on these. So to rotate this image I can just click like that. Rotate four times and I'm back where I
started. Now you can always click More here and get a list of other actions because there's only
room for two actions here and then a More button. So any more than two is going to be in this list
underneath the three dots button.These are things I've created using Automator or Script Editor.
But sometimes there's more. If you go to Customize then it will bring you into System Preferences,
into Extensions, and to Finder here. I'll see all the different extensions that will add Quick
Actions to the Finder Preview Pane. So in this case I have an app that adds a few extra. So
installing apps will sometimes add them here as well as creating your own things in Automator.
Now notice I've got this button here Show More. If I click that it expands what's shown here. So
for an image I see a ton more information. So I see the Color space, Color profile,
you know Device models since this is a photo. Lots of different things about this image. You could
always click Show Less to hide all of that. Now you can go to View and then Show Preview Options
to customize everything. So here for Preview Options Image, since I have an image selected,
you could see I've got Tags turned on. I've got dates of which ones are there. Image details, only
some of them are shown, and all sorts of other things. These are the things I previously saw when
I clicked Show More. But I could have them shown by default. So, for instance, if I wanted to have
the Device Model I could see what device was used to take this photo. Now note if I select
a different file type all this changes. Instead of Preview Options Image, if I select a video,
it says Preview Options Movie. I've got different things now in this list. Here's an Audio File and
you could see I've have different things for audio files. Here's a text file and I have different
things for text. So these preview options will change depending upon what you've selected.
Here's a Numbers file and it will say Preview Options Spreadsheet.
Now when it comes to these previews you're basically seeing what you would see in QuickLook
and there's some functionality here. For instance for an image I can use two fingers on my trackpad
and spread apart to zoom in on the image. Then two fingers moving around on the trackpad to
move the image around. For a video, if I move my cursor over it you could see I have a Play button
and I can play the video. The same thing for Audio. I'll get a Play button here and I could
listen to the sound. Here I've selected a Pages document. Any large document,
like a Pages document or a pdf, I can actually flip through the pages. Other things you could
do with the Preview is you could actually click and drag it. So I could drag it to move the
file to import it into another application. I could drag it into an application window.
Now also note you could see something here when you select a Folder. So I select a
folder and I'll see a large folder icon and I'll see information about the folder. The name and
the total size. It doesn't work in Column View. If you select a folder in Column View
it is going to show the contents of what's in that folder here. So you
really never get to see a Preview Pane version of the folder in Column View. But in Icon View
and List View you get to see the folder here. So there's a look at using the Preview Pane in
macOS Finder. I know a low of users would find it really useful just to have it on all the time or
at least be able to use Shift Command P to bring up the Preview Pane very quickly when you need it.