How to disable finder animation?

Question

EJW Tas Author

Level 1

80 points

How to disable finder animation?

I would really like to kill the 'cutesy' animations associated with the Finder in Yosemite.

My biggest issue is the option to create a "New Folder with Selection" under Finder/File menu

I work with large image libraries, moving files and collections around - ogten in the 100s of images at a time

A typical example: I shoot 300 images and dump the files into a temporary work/storage/sort folder on my desktop

I then select subsets of files as required and move them into specific folders based on subject, location etc

Lets say I select all the NEF files (Nikon raw) to put the NEFs into a single folder

I select 300 files (30MB each) and I have the option of creating a folder based on this selction

super-slow animation of folders hunching together then treacle-slowly 'dropping' into the folder

can take up to 30 seconds for the cutesy animation eye-candy before I have the option to rename the resultant folder

there have been plenty of times when this exercise (multiple times per day) has crashed the finder

is there a defaults write command to kill this Finder behaviour?

any assistance welcomed!

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), (mid-2012) 8GB RAM

Posted on Jan 9, 2015 1:03 PM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,246 points

Jan 9, 2015 1:09 PM in response to EJW Tas

Download the Yosemite version of OnyX. Launch the app and click on the Parameters heading. Under the General tab, uncheck the box for "Graphic effects when opening windows". Under the Finder tab, uncheck "Window zooming" and "Animate Info window".

That will stop most of it.

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Answer 2

EJW Tas Author

Level 1

80 points

Jan 9, 2015 1:15 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Hi Kurt

thanks for yours. I have Onyx (and Tinker Tool and others) and the options you describe/suggest were already turned off, and I still have the described behaviour. Thanks

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,246 points

Jan 9, 2015 1:31 PM in response to EJW Tas

Hmm, not sure what's going on there. It killed all animations for me.

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Answer 4

EJW Tas Author

Level 1

80 points

Jan 9, 2015 2:56 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Interesting - specifically the animations associated with 'New folder with selection'?
I can check then uncheck the options you mentioned in your post in Onyx to see if a pref is corrupted. See if that fixes the issue

many thanks

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Answer 5

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,246 points

Jan 9, 2015 3:02 PM in response to EJW Tas

That one does still animate. Don't see a way to disable it.

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Answer 6

EJW Tas Author

Level 1

80 points

Jan 9, 2015 3:09 PM in response to Kurt Lang

ok, thanks for your efforts - appreciated

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Answer 7

Marja E

Level 1

50 points

Jul 10, 2015 8:14 AM in response to EJW Tas

I have sensory processing issues. Animation hurts. I could really use tools to disable it everywhere. I tried Onyx, but it is full of animation. I really need to get rid of bouncy icons, shakey icons, the painimations on the front page of this website, etc.

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Answer 8

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,256 points

Jul 10, 2015 8:41 AM in response to EJW Tas

in terminal

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool NO

or

defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

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Answer 9

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Jul 10, 2015 9:34 AM in response to EJW Tas

OS X will slow down animations when you hold shift, this can often be when you are making elaborate selections in Finder with modifier keys. Release shift to see if it helps. 30 seconds seems terribly long to me.

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Answer 10

Marja E

Level 1

50 points

Jul 10, 2015 9:45 AM in response to EJW Tas

People have suggested Tinkertool and Onyx to me. I can't use either though, because both are full of painimation.

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Answer 11

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,246 points

Jul 10, 2015 10:30 AM in response to Marja E

Yes, OnyX uses sheets to display things as you change to each main tab, but you only have to use the tool long enough to turn off the animations you can as I described above. That gets rid of a lot of them.

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Answer 12

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Jul 10, 2015 10:58 AM in response to Marja E

I think if animations cause you physical pain you may need to use a different OS. OS X has been slowly removing the options to customise the UI over the years and has been adding animations.

A Linux variant will use less animation & may make your computer usage less painful if you can stand to learn how to customise every detail. I have no idea how you could 'tame the web' besides using a text based browser like Lynx.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser)

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Answer 13

Jul 10, 2015 11:08 AM in response to EJW Tas

Strange I never even new this 'New Folder with selection" existed. Cool! I just tried it and I don't have any animation on it for Yosemite but i do under Mountain Lion. One thing that I have different is in Accessibility/Display I checked Reduce transparency and Increase Contrast. I have certain vision issues that don't work well with the super flat yosemite look.

I still don't know what would make it take so long. I just did a folder on ML (since it has the animation) with a folder of 200 high res pics and it only took about .5 sec with animation.

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Answer 14

EJW Tas Author

Level 1

80 points

Jul 10, 2015 7:19 PM in response to leroydouglas

Magic!! worked like a charm! many thanks

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Answer 15

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,256 points

Jul 10, 2015 7:22 PM in response to EJW Tas

EJW TasJul 10, 2015 7:19 PM Re: How to disable finder animation?

Re: How to disable finder animation?in response to leroydouglas

Magic!! worked like a charm! many thanks

Glad to hear it solved your problem.

Good computing !

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