Manually arranging files in Finder?

I found a way to kind of manually sort files in a folder...

I’m doing this on Maverick.

This doesn't work when you are in "View as Icons" mode.

1. Click on file.
2. Command + i (for “Get Info” in the File menu).
3. An Info window of that file will pop up.
4. Click on the arrow to expand the "Comments:" tab.
5. Type a number ("1" for if you want the file to be first in the list, "5" if you want it to be the fifth, etc.). Or you could use letters.
6. Exit out of the Info window.
7. Command + J (for "Show View Options" in View menu).
8. Click the box next to "Comments." Make sure a checkmark appears.
9. Click Use As Defaults so Comments will show up every time. It will show up for every folder you open (as long as the folder has at least one file showing). So, hopefully that doesn't annoy you.
10. Now there is a new column called "Comments" in your Finder window.
11. You can drag the "Comments" column to any position (like right after the "Name" column) if you want.
12. When you click the Comments column, it will sort the files in numerical order (based on what you put for your comments). Or alphabetical order if you chose to use letters instead of numbers.

Still haven't figured out how to make this sorting option default since Comments isn't one of the options to Sort By in the View Options window. So, you'd have to click the Comments column to sort the numbers each time you open that folder.

The only way I can think of pulling this off is to give each folder a label. Then sort by label.

There is no way to completely customize the order of files shown in the Finder other than to set the view for the window to icon view (View -> as Icons), which I would think would not really be suitable. Perhaps you need to start using some kind of photo management software, like iPhoto or Aperture.

There's some good information on that here:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os_x_lion_using_finders_all_my_files_feat ure/

Nope, this has never been possible in any list view in the Finder. Any kind of icon view has had this capability, of course.

I found this page in the SERPs for "mac custom order files in finder" and subsequently figured out my own solution in the process. It's true that Finder cannot put Pic D in front of Pic C, so I resorted to third party software called A Better Finder Rename. What I did was keep open a Finder window with thumbnail view, then click and drag the list view in this software to the sequence needed. Then simply let this app add an index number to the end of each filename.

This would work assuming you do not absolutely need the filenames to be Pic A, Pic B, etc. For me, I just had to manually sort image files to correspond to their index in a slide carousel having scanned them in the wrong order. Anyway, maybe this will lead someone to a solution even three years later!