Folders on top in El Capitan

+1. I used TotalFinder simply to put folders in a group at the top of Finder lists. Would love it as a native feature.

+1 this BASIC idea. It's appalling to see how OS X and Dropbox developers (there're more examples out there I'm sure) are not able to recognise utility of such simple and OLD feature. Folders are used to organise files, i.e. it's a hierarchy path, not content! So whenever a user opens a dir, it's logical to have hierarchy separated from files, i.e. have folders on top, to make traversing easier (whoever does not like it — free to turn it off).

"Arrange by kind" is not an option, as it arranges EVERYTHING by kind, not only separates files from folders. Classical usecase, Downloads dir: have various folders (download categories) listed on top, and most recent uncategorized downloads right below them. If arranged by kind & sorted by date, then each of the "kinds" will be sorted by date, i.e. most recent file will be not on top (as one expects after sorting by date), but somewhere where its kind is.

p.s. I know "think different" and similar yada-yada, but being stubborn (in admitting own wrong decisions) is not the same as being different.

Reminds me of "last closed window should quit the app" argument. Now, when Apple accepted wrongdoing, we're in a situation when half of apps quit after last window closed, and half stay uselessly in the Dock and RAM, even when user's intention was to quit them completely. People demand consistency! 🙂

Reminds me of "last closed window should quit the app" argument. Now, when Apple accepted wrongdoing, we're in a situation when half of apps quit after last window closed, and half stay uselessly in the Dock and RAM, even when user's intention was to quit them completely. People demand consistency

There was no wrongdoing and there is plenty of consistency. Apps don't quit when you close the last window, if there's something you can do without a window. If there isn't then they do. Just like always. Difference now is that more apps are databases and fall into that category.

We can't change how Finder displays our filesystem - but we can alter actual filesystem contents to achieve desired behavior. We can update a "modifed date" tag for all folders on an hourly basis.

This way, all folders would get to the top (when viewing with "Date Modified" sortting), only with exclusion of a small number of files modified within last hour.

Even better then that, folders with exactly same "modified date" get sorted alphabetically against each other - which is very convenient for navigation.

To do that, run following commands in a terminal.

1) Decide, which top-level folders you want to organize this way. I don't recommend doing it system-wise, or user-wise (~), as it will include applications and system stuff. Too scary. In my case, it was 3 folders:

~/Downloads

~/Documents

~/Google\ Drive

2) Check number of directories within. It should be reasonably small (not greater then 1000 or something like that):

find ~/Downloads -type d | wc -l

find ~/Documents -type d | wc -l

find ~/Google\ Drive -type d | wc -l

3) If it is too big, consider modifying "find" command to exclude some extra-large directory (midght be trickier if there is more then one such directory)

find ~/Documents/ -name '~/Documents/Extra-Large-Subdir' -prune -o -type d | wc -l

4) Try it on one directory. Check if you liked results in Finder.

find ~/Downloads -type d -exec touch {} \;

5) Add entries to the crontab:

crontab -l > ~/my_crontab

echo "30 * * * * find ~/Downloads -type d -exec touch {} \;" >> ~/my_crontab

echo "30 * * * * find ~/Documents -name '~/Documents/Extra-large-subdir' -prune -o-type d -exec touch {} \;" >> ~/my_crontab

echo "30 * * * * find ~/Google\ Drive -type d -exec touch {} \;" >> ~/my_crontab

crontab ~/my_crontab

30 * * * * means running it each hour at 30 minutes (00:30, 01:30, 02:30 etc).

Wow! Thank you for the time and effort to offer up a work-around. Not sure that most users will want to dig into the file system like this and make changes, but it does offer a reasonable option for some. Unless you go system-wide with it, it is far less useful, as finder results are now different depending on which folders you are looking in.

Until Apple gives a crap about the issue, it won't change. And there are apparently not enough vocal users out there wishing for this option.

Or... use Pathfinder.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't agree with your point that "Unless you go system-wide with it, it is far less useful". One typically works with same user folders or volumes like 98% of the time. It's quite rare for most to dig within system folder ( / ), or folders like ~/Applications which are only two places i wouldn't want to "touch" hourly.

After a short trial period, I did just that. Pathfinder is significantly more robust than Totalfinder was, but most users will probably not avail themselves of much offered there. BTW, the 50% discount is still good for Pathfinder, making it $19.95, which is probably worth it to many users.

Wlas not trying to say anything negative there. Useful - yes. But still less useful to have to pick and choose which folders. On those occasions when you look in places outside you usual 8 or 10 normal locations, you will be confronted with a different look and feel. And those instances will be rare-ish, giving the user an "unexpected" look and feel. That's all I was saying. For the everyday stuff - if you make the changes to your top ten locations, yes indeed - useful.

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

This only works when "Arrange by: Kind" option is enabled in Finder window, which is not always useful.

This is true. I'm thinking of taking Pathfinder for a spin. It appears that this now supports El Capitan. Does this mean the original question is resolved for the OP?

+1 too. Googled for it while being on Yosemite and people asked about it for years. And yes, trouble is that other peops still in science.

Where I could send a feature request? So I will send my request too.

Again, http://www.apple.com/feedback/