Available Finder Views and working with large and deep folder structures

I will treat your comments as numbered and respond where I can.

#1. 35 GB, maybe seven folder layers, a long-term buildup of my personal files, not a business.

#2. On List view, you can go deep in the sense of an indefinitely long list of files in a single folder, but view of a deep folder structure with many subfolders is not available at the same time, except by bread crumbs, which I am not sure I can get used to.

#3. Microsoft Windows File Explorer. It hasn't changed much in decades either.

#4. Yes, the shortened file names are in column view, where you can better see the entire folder structure. If you are for example six layers down in the folder structure, you have a lot of columns, and there is not room to do much widening, so pretty much all the file names are truncated quite a bit.

I will try control triangle. I have been on Windows for a few decades, and Mac's Finder View seems unreasonably constricted and limited, as I noted originally. I have owned one Mac for six months and Finder is preventing me from proceeding to use Macs as my main computer. In Windows File Explorer, I can see the entire folder structure and all the full file names, and I just puzzle why the Macs don't provide this view option, especially if views are not difficult to construct technically speaking.

Sometimes expressing a problem clearly is the hardest part, but I think I have made some progress since your last post. Yes, for sure, you can use list view to expand indefinitely downward, and see all folders and files in a unified structure in Finder. Taking the 100% expanded file and folder structure as the starting point of an example, you click on and open a folder that is two or more levels down, let's use five levels. With Finder, what you now see in the right pane is the contents of the opened folder. In the left pane you see Favorites, non-expandable. What you do not see anymore is the entire folder structure between Documents and the open folder, showing which folder is opened and most importantly where the opened folder is in the overall folder structure. With File Explorer, you have in the left pane the entire folder structure expanded downward, and the opened folder is itself highlighted. This enables moving files and folders around by drag and drop, so as to optimize the file and folder structure overall, as the user sees fit. I do a fair amount of this, and Finder would not be as easy to use for this for the reasons above.

A central issue in all this is whether the folder structure, after opening for example a level five folder, should expand vertically downward, or horizontally rightward. The clear fact is that there is indefinite room vertically down, and very limited room to the right horizontally. With Finder, I am looking at the contents of the level five folder I have opened, but no on-screen information about where that opened folder is in the folder structure, except the bread crumbs. The bread crumbs give some minimal orientation to the folder structure, but not usefully so because the bread crumbs do not help much in drag and drop. I want and need to see both the contents in the opened folder in level 5, and also where that folder is in the full structure. File Explorer has always provided this.

The Mac remedy here is creating the Columns view (logically a remedy, I have no idea of actual history). But the great flaw in the columns view is that columns must be few and narrow for multiple levels, often truncating file names. Who wants to use cognitive space for guessing at file names, which may differ only in the one or two rightmost characters in the name before the extension? Adjusting column widths constantly is tedious, time-consuming, and boring.

My conclusion is the the Mac needs another view option with the folder structure expanding downward and remaining in view even after a folder is opened to view and open files. I don't think such a basic software idea is patentable, just guessing on that. l have read that the Finder structure is mostly unchanged over the life of the Mac, no idea if that is true. But it seems to me that Apple engineers need to look at these issue and fix a real problem with competitive implications.

Yes, the user can go up the path bar in drag and drop. A good way to express the issue I am bringing up is that it can be in certain circumstances highly functional, for folder structure optimization, for instance, to be able to see the other path bars. Let's say I am at the 4th folder level down in path bar A, looking at the files in that folder. With a vertical, accessible, and expandable folder structure in File Explorer, I can look at and expand path bar D, with the motive perhaps being to revise the folder structure more effectively. The point is that I can look at path A and D at the same time, and C as well. This is the benefit of a full expandable vertical folder structure in the left pane, as File Explorer has. I do a lot of this. For example, if I have a folder path for Cars and one for Iphones, I have to decide where to put Carplay. Or I may see two folder paths that are no longer relevant to my life, and I might drag them into a Misc category more out of the way to reduce folder clutter. I am not saying that these kinds of things cannot be done in Finder, but rather that doing them is notably more awkward in Finder. With File Explorer, you have access to the entire folder structure map at a glance, and you can expand in areas of current interest, and still have the structure overall in view. This may or may not be a good analogy: I prefer a map for navigation in a car, but others prefer a single laid out pathway, so voice instructions to turn here, etc. I rather suspect, but cannot prove of course, that lifetime Mac users do less folder structure optimization than lifetime Windows users because of the handy full folder structure map on the left pane of File Explorer. Cultures are formed by the tools that are introduced, soft or hard. If someone has not experienced the ease of overall folder structure management in Windows, they won't be missing anything to their knowledge. I have no doubt that there are advantages in many aspects of the Mac that the Windows user just don't realize because they are just used to the tools they use, like all of us. I would like to move to a Mac, but Finder needs to change to a vertical and expandable folder structure in the left pane, always in view. I think I am far from alone in this.

Regarding your comment about "your entire hard drive" above, I was intending to refer just to Documents, so I need to clarify that.

What you can see in the left pane of File Explorer is all and only the folders, no files at all ever. The list view, shows when expanded not only subfolders but also any files under subfolders that are not themselves in folders. This is problematic because the folder structure is not as clearly and compactly displayed and analyzed due to files taking up so much vertical room. One thing I appreciate about File Explorer is being able to inspect just the folder structure. I think this is a signficant point in practice.

I have learned in this thread about several Finder controls that I was not familiar with, but at the same time this points to the comparative complexity of Finder Controls. That complexity pushes away users like me with just one Mac in the house, and considering more to replace my Windows computers, but balking at Finder. Long term Mac users like you do not experience this complexity anymore because you have incorporated it into behavior at a deeper level.

I would put a possibly related question back to you: If Finder's List view is so adequate, why is there such a view as Columns? It is hard to follow the path from the rightmost item back leftward to the higher up folders. Columns view looks like it is intended to clarify paths through all folders levels for the given rightmost items. Maybe you don't like it, but I wonder what the rationale is for it generally, why some users are thought to want it, if you have a comment on that.

Good, but that at the same time extra work to hover and so forth, compared to the speed and ease of just quickly reading them off. I think you are commenting on the breadcrumbs, because I don't get anything from a hover in Columns.

I am a coward with third party apps, especially with software such as Finder. How can one ever know they are 100% safe and and not trouble-causing?