Folders on top in El Capitan

The thread that never ends and will never be resolved. 😁

Everyone who wants folders at the top please switch to Path Finder. You can have folders at the top in Icon, List and Column views and SIP does not have to be disabled. Plus it has some other niceties and I can have some peace. 😎

That wasn't altering a preference setting. That was hacking the code of the Finder. You can no longer hack the code of apps in El Capitan without disabling SIP. Once the hack the app, you can re-enable SIP, but an update may change things back.

Apparently you are not a developer (no insult intended, merely an observation). No Sir, this is no code hacking. Hacking code would require to modify or overwrite a binary (executable) after having compiled a code file (in this case originating from Apple). Unless of course you hack the binary directly.

Anyway, none of this was suggested in the provided link. What has been explained there is how to modify a configuration file finder is using. This might be an undocumented file not meant to be modified by users and would as such be some kind of hack. But most definitely not "hacking the code of the Finder".

Just to make it clear, I'm not promoting such modifications, I simply want to point out, that the sorting algorithm of Finder seams to have been configurable. Getting it where some users would like to get it to, seems not a question of complexity.

However, the determination of "Kind" has been slowly evolving using Universal Type Identifiers instead of file extensions or the original Mac OS Type and Creator codes. So, altering the sort behavior by putting a space in front of "Folder" may no longer affect the Sorting and Arranging. You would likely need to hack Spotlight, now.

Using universal type identifiers merely is a new way of classifying file type. If it all it should make it even simpler to sort in any way a user would like to. Provided he is given access to a configuration file. And the sorting is not done simply alphabetically (name of classifier), but by whatever sorting priority is given to each classifier. I do such things all the time in my development. And I'm just a one man band.

...basically what it does is a rename of all folders by putting a blanc before it. You can do that yourself with batch rename, that is why I suggested the zero (instead of the blanc, so you always see what you are doing).

I understand what it does. And yes, I could do this myself. Two answers to this:

1) I would be nuts doing that

2) It still would not help me with all the folders I do not create

1) I would be nuts doing that

2) It still would not help me with all the folders I do not create

agreed to that.

I am out of ideas.

But I am not going to use any Finder like alternative either, so I stumble on....

Hopefully Apple receives enough request through Feedback to consider it...

Being the mighty pedantic developer, you should easily be able to write your own finder replacement that will put folders wherever you'd like them.

These guys did it: http://rixstep.com/

It should be a real money-maker for you as you've got a user base of like twenty people who need the feature.

Find me in the WC, please. Lex

@falconeye:To be fair, the command line ls (Unix) only supports sort by name, date and size, no directories first option.

The GNU version of `ls` has the

 --group-directories-first

If you want folders listed first then do:

brew install coreutils

And then alias it in your ~/.bashrc:

alias ls='/usr/local/bin/gls --color -h --group-directories-first'

heligo9 wrote:

A little late to the party but this worked for me.

• On boot up hold CMD+R
• Open Terminal:

csrutil disable

• Restart
• Open Terminal:

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj

sudo plutil -replace Folder -string " Folder" InfoPlist.strings

killall Finder

• On boot up hold CMD+R
• Open Terminal:

csrutil enable

Restart

I suspect that the majority of people actually don't understand how to use heligo9's solution and discard it as NOT the solution they need. At least, it was not immediately obvious to me, so I thought I'll provide some more detailed explanation on the usage:

Once you patch 'Folder' to ' Folder' you should NOT set Arrangement = Kind. What you should do is set Arrangement = None and select the *column sort* type by Kind as can be seen in the screenshot below. In other words, click the Group By icon and select None, and then click the Kind column header in the Finder column bar. I suspect that this is the behaviour that most people probably want.

It does not really address the underlying issue: folders are used as structure elements by users, not as another file kind/type as Finder forces them to. Say, in Downloads dir I have 10 sub-folders to classify incoming files. Currently, there's no way (even by changing type string to " Folder") to have folders on top AND get all other files sorted by Date Added. Finder either will break listing by file kind (and arrange items by Date within each kind, keeping fresh downloads all over the place) or break listing by Date (and arrange by Kind within each date, keeping folders all over the listing).

What's even more mindblowing is that Dropbox follows the suit and mixes folders with other file types. And if you're a heavy dropbox user on a 1TB account, there's literally no way to locate anything in your Dropbox unless you remember exactly where you hid it. Welcome to 2016 people.

I think 2016 would say that these days we use Search 😉

But seriously, the Finder is a good basic file manager. Pretty much all of Apple's own software comes under the same heading. Page is a good basic WP, Numbers a good basic speadsheet, Photos a good basic Photo Manager and so on. If you want more power buy an app that works the way you want to.

Well, Search works for certain types of files, but there're plenty of use cases when you sort of know what you're after, but can't hit it with a search term. Pre-organized folder structure helps to narrow search down to a subfolder where the item can be easily located. Now, if you don't have such such structure immediately available (i.e. list of folders sitting on top/bottom of your dir listing), you have to try recalling what was the folder name, i.e. hectically scroll trying to spot all folders amongst myriads of other files.

And yes, while Page, Numbers and Photos might be decent free apps for some, on the other hand Terminal, iTunes, Textedit, Contacts, Reminders, Calendar, Mail etc. are all stuck in 2006-state and discarded by power users right after installing new MacOS. It's just with new system protection thingy all Finder enhancing apps stopped functioning properly, hence this thread.

Path Finder is a very good Finder replacement/addition which has the additional benefit that you don't have to disable SIP to use it.

Now, if you don't have such such structure immediately available (i.e. list of folders sitting on top/bottom of your dir listing), you have to try recalling what was the folder name, i.e. hectically scroll trying to spot all folders amongst myriads of other files.

Just Sort by Kind and they are all in one place. No need to go hectic.

So...as suggested many, many times already in the thread, use an app that has the power you want. Personally I use PathFinder.

alabanco wrote:

This is not the way out.

1. folders on top should be in any view. that's the crucial point.

2. folders should be first even when you sort by date modified because folders are the priority and files are not. There is a logic in that.

And yes Eric, I did send my feedback about that. The problem is that people seem to get used to any difficulties and keep silent. I do hope that XtraFinders and TotalFinder users will send this also to Apple. I do also hope that other users will do the same who do understand how important it is.

That is what you want, fortunately we don't have to have what you want, useful that.