10.6.4: refresh Finder window?????

This community spirit where everyone feels obliged to respond on behalf of Apple that things found lacking must certainly be things that you don't really need, that's quite annoying. Why respond at all then?

Anyways, the lack of a refresh option for Finder windows is a serious shortcoming. When you mount an FTP server in Finder, it all works quite well (at least recently, since FTP was discovered by the Mac OS X folks), If anything changes on the server you just don't see it in the Finder window. If you are aware of the change, you can't tell the Finder about it. Closing and re-opening the window doesn't help either. You need to disconnect from the server and then re-connect to see the changed contents,

There must be a way to fix this in a future OS X version, it doesn't seem such a big change.

And FTP server doesn't broadcast a change. You must send a get command to the server to see any changes. Even a dedicated FTP client wouldn't update the list unless you requested it. FTP has always been a very rudimentary thing integrated into the Finder. I doubt it will get any better. Here's where you request it, though: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Hence the potential usefulness of a refresh button or command in Finder, as it is present in {substitute any other OS here}, which is what the OP pointed out. I think it is not only useful for FTP (where a refresh would then obviously re-get data from the server), but probably most network mounted folders.

Other than that, the FTP functionality works better than I had expected, shame that it's missing this tiny option to make it truly useful.

Thanks for the link, I didn't know about this. Let's see if this leads anywhere.

An old thread, but I feel obligated to reply as well. Alexander is absolutely correct. It is supremely irritating for someone to ask a specific question and for someone to chime in with "Why do you want to do that? Do this instead." In this particular instance, suggesting they close and reopen is a painfully obvious requirement, hence the original request.

Whether you have used your Mac for 26 years or 26,000 years and not needed what the OP is asking for is completely irrelavent. *HE* needs it. Answer the question or keep it to yourself. I actually *USE* my Mac and need to refresh all the time. I have multiple Finder windows open all the time, and am creating directories, shares, copying files and performing all manner of operations - particularly when building websites and managing folders, wiki, etc and having to close out and open the finder window again, and the *navigate back to where you were* is a total PITA. In Lion, some things automatically refresh - but things like shares and other network resources do not. Lion also provides for immediate rename-update which is a fantastic feature, but there could still be some improvement.

My reason for posting, however, it is to support Alexander's statements, and to simply ask people to think first before creating unnecessary churn on the list.

I am seeing this problem in my updated 64-bit Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Lion) as well. I haven't tried 10.8 (Mountain Lion) yet. It is easily noticeable with connected servers (Windows and Apple) through Finder.