Viewing Finder Folder directory Trees

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Viewing Finder Folder directory Trees

My question relates to finder folder display settings. When I open a finder window, and navigate down past the 3rd layer of folders, and then want to open the folder I am in, in a new tab, so that the folder I am in is the first folder row, all I am getting in the new tab is the folder tree that I have open in the existing tab replicated.

In

the example below I am I navigate to the library folder

Once

in the library folder I want to open a new tab for the 'application support'

folder. I right click on the folder and close "open in new tab"

The

image below shows the new tab. It has the full folder tree, rather than opening

the new folder with Application support being the top directory level. This is

a pain when searching through lots of folder trees.

Can

somebody point me to how to change this setting. I am nearly definite that I

used to have this setting as default.

Posted on Oct 13, 2019 3:53 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

145,590 points

Oct 13, 2019 7:09 PM in response to Flam28

Thank you for clearing up my misunderstanding. The additional screenshots showing the tabs were very helpful, and I was able to duplicate what you're seeing.

As I understand what you would like to do, you want to open a new tab showing a truncated path: one that begins with the folder you right-click, omitting its encompassing folder and everything above it. Is that correct? Because I can't do that in List View either.

If I understand what you want to see, I agree what the Finder is doing is not very helpful toward achieving it. Opening a folder in a new Tab certainly doesn't seem to help. Unfortunately I don't know if that's a bug or not, and having never tried to do what you're doing I don't recall how previous macOS versions implemented it. Give me some time to find an older system and I'll compare the two, but before I go too far down that road please let me know if my understanding of your concern is correct.

I am nearly definite that I used to have this setting as default.

There have been Finder bugs in the past (example 1) (example 2) so if Mojave's behavior is in fact different than previous macOS versions then I'd be inclined to report it as such.

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

145,590 points

Oct 13, 2019 5:56 PM in response to Flam28

I'm not sure I understand what's wrong. Perhaps there is, but if you want to view a file/folder structure in that manner then don't do this:

When I open a finder window, and navigate down past the 3rd layer of folders, and then want to open the folder I am in, in a new tab, ...

... I right click on the folder and close "open in new tab"

I think you meant to write choose "open in new tab", but don't do that. Don't right-click. Just use "list view", shown selected in the screenshot below.

A new Finder Tab is identical to opening a new Finder Window, except it's contained within the same window, under its own Tab. That new Tab will contain only that folder's contents, without any hierarchy.

So, I don't understand how doing what you describe would be applicable to viewing a folder's hierarchy.

Perhaps customizing the Finder's Toolbar and dragging the "Path" icon into it might help accomplish what you seek:

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Answer 3

Flam28 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2019 6:36 PM in response to John Galt

OK,

That answer confused me, but I get that you're not 100% sure what I am trying to achieve. Just in case it was a working solution, I added the path icon to the finder menu bar, from what I can see all it does is allow you to quickly move to a folder in its dropdown list. That's not what I am trying to achieve. I have (hopefully) better explained why I am trying to achieve below. Apologies for the poor (initial) explanation.

Image 1 below shows a finder window. I am in the folder Library/Application Support/Adobe...

I can see the folder AAMUpdater. I want to open the folder AAMUpdater in a new finder tab, without displaying the folder tree before the AAMUpdater folder. But when I open the folder I get this

I can see the previous folder trees still open, this is a pain because as I go further through down the folder list it makes navigating back or drag moving files a bit of a pain. What I was hoping to see what as below

Now the above doesn't show the tabs because i've used photoshop. But I hope you get the idea. There would be two tabs, one with the folder tree up to AAmUpdater, and a new tab that looks like the above, without the family tree of the previous folders displayed.

I am super grateful for your reply and I hope that this has cleared up what I was trying to ask.

Thanks

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Answer 4

Flam28 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2019 7:15 PM in response to John Galt

Yes you now definitely understand what I am trying to achieve. I am nearly 100% sure that a recent previous mac version had this feature, but I cannot be sure which one. I moved to mac from windows 10 years go, and this is/was a feature of windows, but I doubt it's the ghost of that memory. I am pretty sure that I used finder the same way I used windows explorer (in this instance). I thought I might have changed a finder folder display setting inadvertently, but your last post seems to imply it's not available.

I am very grateful for your help with this.

B.

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

145,590 points

Oct 13, 2019 7:27 PM in response to Flam28

Flam28 you're brilliant. I only had to go back to a High Sierra system to confirm you're not crazy: what you want to accomplish works exactly how you would like it to work in High Sierra, and Mojave just doesn't do it.

As far as I know there are no applicable Finder settings to change, and I certainly didn't change anything intentionally. I'll need to find a way to describe what's going on but I will report it as a bug.

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Answer 6

Flam28 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2019 7:31 PM in response to John Galt

No, in all seriousness, I was feeling a bit spun out, like I said; I kind of thought it was a memory of how windows had worked and while I was definite that i'd used mac os in this way, I was beginning to doubt myself.

While I am disappointed that it doesn't work in Mojave, hopefully the good people of apple will see fit to reinstate this function.

John, Thank you for your replies.... Totally grateful

Take care bud....

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

145,590 points

Oct 14, 2019 2:12 PM in response to Flam28

Thanks! The Finder is just about the only feature to have survived mostly unchanged since the original Macintosh, which makes me wonder how long Apple intends to keep it around. At least the bugs I reported in the past were fixed fairly rapidly.

I assembled representative screenshots comparing Mojave to High Sierra, and hope Apple finds them obvious enough to understand what's going on. This new behavior is obviously different than it had been, and it seems both you and I agree it's not useful in its present form.

All we can do now is wait and hope their "fix" isn't the same as it was for Back to My Mac—which was to kill it.

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Answer 8

Oct 14, 2019 2:36 PM in response to John Galt

It does make you wonder if the same teams are working on Finder from major release to another, and if some of the "improvements" that were done to the Finder in Mojave may have caused collateral damage to yesteryear behaviors.

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Answer 9

Flam28 Author

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Oct 19, 2019 6:16 PM in response to VikingOSX

Yeah... It's kind of disappointing and the other advantage that you get from Finder working this way is that you can seperate how finder sorts the list in each window, so by date added in finder window 1 and by name in finder window 2. I can help locate difficult to locate, (lost) files fairly quickly. It also helps visuals ether information in finder much better for people who filter information this way. it doesn't seem like it's that wild of and thing to do. Code...New tab new rules...A setting under finder tabs would turn on/off such a function. But I'm not running apple, because if i was I would not be doing this boring iPhone MacBook stuff still.

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Answer 10

Flam28 Author

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5 points

Oct 19, 2019 6:25 PM in response to Flam28

I kind of hit send on that a bit early.

Yeah... It's kind of disappointing and the other advantage that you get from Finder working this way is that you can seperate how finder sorts the list in each window, so by date added in finder window 1 and by name in finder window 2. Such a function would help locate difficult to locate, (lost) files fairly quickly. It could also help users visualise information in a way that's more palatable to their experience. It doesn't seem like it's that wild of and thing to do. ...Code...New tab new rules for new tab window...end code....A setting under finder tabs would turn on/off such a function, but who am I to comment. Ciao for all the feedback.

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Answer 11

Flam28 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2019 7:28 PM in response to John Galt

I can get back on the drugs now so... :-).....

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Viewing Finder Folder directory Trees

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