6 ms·

As a Windows user for years until 2 years ago, I can’t believe how unusable finder is. It’s just terrible. I feel like it actively hides the filesystem from you

• dkackman11 10d ago
  this
• haaz 10d ago
  Yes one of the first things I did when moving to mac was pinning Macintosh HDD root folder to Finder, but that kept going away every time I restarted my Max so I bought Bloom which is way better
  • Atariman 10d ago
    Yes, Bloom is really great and easily worth the price!
• maltch 10d ago
  Explorer is a much better tool than Finder. Couldn't agree more.
  • peanball 10d ago
    And yet copying multiple large files from or to the same disk grinds the throughput to a halt on Windows where Finder keeps up close to theoretical bandwidth in sum.
    • userbinator 10d ago
      That's not a UI issue.
    • api 10d ago
      Windows file I/O has always felt slower than Linux, Mac, anything. Still does. I don’t know what’s wrong with it or why it’s unfixable. SSDs make it tolerable… not by fixing it but by being fast enough to hide it. Back in the spinning disc days you could tell a windows machine by how much kerchunking the drive was doing.
    • NinjaTrance 9d ago
      Mac (the hardware) is amazing. MacOS (the OS) is much better than Windows. But MacOS (the user interface) is worse than Windows (or even Linux).
  • api 10d ago
    I find Explorer slow and frustrating, while Finder works but is basic and cumbersome and useless for anything more than basic opening or moving. I remember outstanding file managers way back in the MS-DOS days. Sidekick, QuickDOS, and Norton Commander were great. My take is that expert users use the terminal while regular users don’t like to do much with files. So there’s no push for a powerful graphical file manager.
    • deadbeef7f 10d ago
      If you are a windows user, you may want to check out File Pilot https://filepilot.tech/ https://filepilot.tech/
• raffraffraff 10d ago
  I'll take any file browser over finder. In fact, I hate the whole MacOS UI but I can mostly ignore the problems with Karabiner, Hammerspoon and Rectangle.
  • NinjaTrance 9d ago
    I hate MacOS UI. Red/yellow/green buttons to close(?)/minimize(?)/maximize(?) windows are usability hell.
• jakevoytko 10d ago
  This was my instant reaction when I started using a Mac. But 15 years later, even knowing more tricks for interacting with it, it still baffles me. Once you've used Windows Explorer and a few Linux distro navigators, there's no denying that Finder is unquestionably worst in class.
  • doubled112 10d ago
    Dolphin in KDE has to be one of my favourite GUI file managers ever. Simple to use until you need it to be complicated, then it probably does what you’re looking for.
    • sho_hn 10d ago
      Our KDE development motto (and a contrast explained in our HIG) is "Simple by default, powerful when needed". It's nice to see someone re-state it so naturally and eloquently in the wild!
      • brnt 10d ago
        I can't thank KDE devs enough, so thanks :) Not just Dolphin is among the best in class.
        • sho_hn 8d ago
          Thank you!
      • ktpsns 9d ago
        Thank you so much for Dolphin! I have been a hardcore Konqueror user back in the days. Early dolphin felt like a back step. Nowadays, thought, it easily outshines Konqueror. I still miss a few KIOs which were showcased in Konqueror. I guess they were discontinued.
        • sho_hn 8d ago
          Which ones are you missing? Perhaps I can solve the mystery :-)
• everyone 10d ago
  Imo tech companies want people to be as tech-illiterate as possible. Tech illiterate people will not realise how the tech company did extra work to make their product less capable and less empowering to the user in favour of being more beneficial and empowering to the tech company itself. Obfuscating the file system has been a popular move in this regard. A file system is so elegant and empowering and useful for so many tasks, of course they want to hide it.
  • userbinator 10d ago
    A file system, especially a local one, invites interoperability and control over one's data. Hiding this from users makes it more difficult for them to have that control, and now they have to rely on the application vendor to do in a proprietary way, what would otherwise be a simple file operation.
  • kdidjsidjejd 9d ago
    You greybeard wannabes all have a serious problem: you think tech is made for you and for you alone. Once computers became accessible beyond the hobbyist, enthusiast or professional it became a necessity to guarantee that those people that click on anything they are told to click cannot break their computers simply working the file explorar app. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. You can still do whatever you want with your file system. Except that if you want to break into it and mess with it, you have to actually know what you are doing.
    • bigstrat2003 9d ago
      People who were not hobbyists learned to use computers, in large numbers, so I don't think your conclusion is accurate. Anyone can learn this stuff with a bare minimum of effort.
  • mitxela 8d ago
    Computers don't have to have file systems. The history of personal computing has had more time with file systems being hidden, than with them being visible, and if you weight by the number of users, over 90%.
• hirvi74 10d ago
  What do you mean by "see the file system?" It's not exactly hard to enable in Finder. In Finder's settings, one can have the root directory, home directory, etc. enabled in the sidebar. Not to mention, one can easily drag & drop common folders into the sidebar too. Those settings with the hierarchy view makes seeing the file system quite clear in my opinion.
  • muppetman 10d ago
    So I’m in Microsoft Word. I hit the open file button and get the finder chooser window thing. I want to go up one level. How?? I’m sure there’s some magical key combination to do it but I can never remember it. That’s the first thing I can think off atop my head. I’ve never played in Finder settings. Do I have to do that to get something useable? I didn’t even know it had settings it doesn’t seem like the sort of app that should.
    • classichasclass 10d ago
      Click on the drop down at the top of the Open window (where the name of the current folder is displayed) and you get the whole path to choose from.
      • muppetman 10d ago
        Thank you!!
        • alsetmusic 10d ago
          This suggests that you were genuine in not knowing. But had you never done a quick web search? It's the kind of thing that I'd feel compelled to find whether I could change the behavior to fit what I would prefer. Anyway, if you're unaware, here are a couple useful shortcuts for kbd-driven navigation: Command-Down (arrow) to dig one level down the file tree and Command-Up (arrow) to move to the enclosing directory / folder. I use it many times a day all day long.
• zug_zug 10d ago
  I agree 100%. Been using macs for 15 years now, but the windows XP explorer in particular was fundamentally objectively better than finder, and it's nuts they haven't figured it out. One of the things I find most baffling is that in order to "go to a folder by path" (e.g. ~) you have to hit command-shift-G ? What kind of hidden witchcraft is this? It feels like it was designed for people who cannot understand a directory structure. But even that is done poorly, because it's not particularly useful. That said, this kepter thing looks pretty bad too.
  • monkey_monkey 10d ago
    or you click on "Go" in the menu bar. What key combo did you want that would be less 'magical'?
    • etrautmann 10d ago
      A path bar anywhere in the interface? I also want this to be able to copy a file’s path. Right now I’m not even sure how to do that aside from cmd-i to get info and then clunkily drag select the parent dir to copy. Repeat for the file name. Am I insane or is there a better way? Just use terminal? For a time I used pathfinder which had a feature to copy the full path but I ended up hating the subscription and constant feature churn.
      • CharlesW 10d ago
        It's not unusual for Mac users to create custom shortcuts for things like this using built-in and 3rd-party tools like Shortcuts, Automator/AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon, etc. For copying the path of a file specifically, in Finder you can hold Option and then pick Edit → Copy as Pathname.
      • Wevah 10d ago
        Context menu → hold Option; “Copy” will change to “Copy <file> as Path”. (Sometimes you can just drag and drop the file to where you want to paste, but that depends on the destination app and so isn’t consistent.)
• alsetmusic 10d ago
  This may be of use: > defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true Change to `false` to reverse it. You have to `killall Finder` or force quit it for each to take effect. Also, Shift-Command-. (dot) in Finder. You can find a lot of useful settings that can be adjusted to your preferred mode digging through this repo (not affiliated): https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles
  • g8425 9d ago
    Damn that is a useful repo... Thank you for sharing!
• pan69 10d ago
  When I started using a Mac many years ago, I also could not believe how terrible Finder is. This is software from the "design" company. One of the biggest pitfalls I ran into at the time (and remember from the top of my head) was that when you copy a folder, and a folder with the same name already exists at the destination, it will quietly replace it, rather than giving me a dialog asking if I want to Replace or Merge. Oh, that I can't switch on/off show hidden files, I have to run some command line command to do that...
  • userbinator 10d ago
    They certainly design --- to look good at first glance, but not necessarily be practical.
  • spdustin 10d ago
    ⇧˖⌘˖. (Shift-Command-Period) will show/hide hidden files in Finder
    • timmytokyo 10d ago
      A shortcut that isn't visible in any of Finder's menus. Which makes it virtually undiscoverable. Finder is full of these kinds of hidden secrets.
  • Wevah 10d ago
    You can press Command-Shift-. (period) to toggle hidden files. This isn’t very discoverable, though. You can also hold Option while stopping a folder to get an additional Merge button, but at least one folder needs to have unique items.
    • rswail 10d ago
      Considering there's a Unix underneath, the logical of showing "dotfiles" that are usually hidden is possibly the connection. But MacOS keyboard shortcuts have always been undiscoverable unless they were part of the menu, which is a problem.
  • 10d ago
• pupppet 10d ago
  To Apple, files are an unsightly thing they need to sweep under the carpet, if you have to interact with files they probably believe they’ve done something wrong. Look at Apple Mail, they used to bury attachments behind a button and even now they just drop them at the end of the email.
  • pessimizer 10d ago
    Ignorance of how computers work is a moat. One that Apple influenced the entire industry to adopt. Same reason the Church didn't want to translate the Bible into the vernacular. If you can read the Bible you don't need a priest, or at the least you can evaluate your priest knowledgeably and decide to go to a different one.
  • brnt 10d ago
    Then why did Apple keep the hierarchical file system when moving away from HFS? Could've gone with a kv-store kind of system.
  • mrheosuper 10d ago
    > if you have to interact with files they probably believe they’ve done something wrong. So it's wrong to be power user using mac.
    • 8note 9d ago
      shouldnt a mac power user be the best at never touching a file?
• tiahura 10d ago
  The entire MacOS UI has a 1990's OpenWindows feel. Yes, spacebar is neat, but the rest is dreadful.
• Suppafly 10d ago
  As a dos/windows/linux users my whole life, I got asked by some family a few years back to get photos off of a mac from a deceased family member. I pulled off everything I could find, but I was never sure I actually found everything because I basically had to just search for different image types, but had no real way to browse to actual folders where things were stored.
  • thrwkmmshf00083 10d ago
    It's a Unix system under the fancy UI. Of course there are folders and of course you can go to them. You can also grep in the terminal or whatever you are used to do from Linux to your heart's content. Personally, I think the representation of the directory tree in Linux and MacOS is equally jarring for a person who has grown up with DOS and Windows. It certainly was for me when I peeked my head out of Bill-Gates-Land as a teenager.
• beAbU 10d ago
  MacOS spawned a whole cottage industry of paid software that make up for it's deficiencies.
• SebastianKra 9d ago
  Explorer has - no columns view - no quick look - freezes for 5 seconds when you accidentally drag over a disconnected network location - when opening a files, doesn't let you drag in an file to select it. - no shortcut for toggling hidden files - no tabs until Win 11 - no tags - no sorting by "date added" This was mostly a check for myself to see if I had Stockholm syndrome. But I keep finding more reasons to prefer Finder.