How to Use Column View Options in Finder on the Mac

Control Column View’s appearance

By
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson
Writer

Tom Nelson is an engineer, programmer, network manager, and computer network and systems designer who has written for Other World Computing,and others. Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm.

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Updated on November 17, 2021

What to Know

  • Use the icons in the View section to format the Finder window. You can choose to see things as icons, a list, or a column.
  • Right-click the window and select Show View Options to customize the column view.
  • The options screen lets you adjust text size; group icons by size, name, or date; show icon previews, and more.

The Finder window's column view is a way to quickly see where an item exists in the hierarchical view of Mac's file system. Column view shows the parent folder and any subfolders a file resides within, each represented in its own column. This information applies to macOS Catalina (10.15) through OS X Mountain Lion (10.8).

Opening a Finder Window

Open a Finder window by one of several methods:

  • Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
  • Use the keyboard shortcut Command + N.
  • Select File > New Finder Window from the menu bar after clicking on the desktop.

The icons in the View section at the top of the Finder window control the format of the window. You can choose to view files from left to right as icons, a list, in column view, or (beginning with macOS Mojave) a gallery.

Finder window on a Mac computer showing the View options

Column View Customization Options

When you view a file or folder in the Finder in Column view, you have a few options for customizing it.

To control how Column view looks and behaves, open a Finder window and click the Column view icon at the top of the screen. Right-click in any blank area of the window and select Show View Options from the popup menu. If you prefer, you can bring up the same view options by selecting View > Show View Options from the Finder menu bar.

Floating menu for Founder window options

The options screen includes these choices:

  • Always open in column view: Place a check mark next to this option to cause the Finder window to always use Column view when you first open it. You can, of course, use the Finder view buttons to change the view type after you open a folder in the Finder.
  • Group By: You have the option to group by None, Name, Date Last Opened, Date Added, Date Modified, Date Created, Size, and Tags.
  • Sort By: The Sort By default is Name, but you can choose other options, including Date Last Opened, Date Added, Date Modified, Date Created, Size, and Tags.
  • Text size: Use this drop-down menu to specify the text size used for an item's name and the attributes that display in each column.
  • Show icons: This option enables or disables the display of icons in Column view. When this option is checked, a small icon displays to the left of an item's name.
  • Show icon preview: This option enables or disables the ability of icons to show a thumbnail preview of their contents. With a check mark in place, the icons show a preview. With the check mark removed, the file's default icon displays.
  • Show preview column: Column view can dedicate the last column in its display to showing detailed information about a selected file. This information is similar to the data you see when you use the Get Info command in the Finder. The preview column only displays when a file is selected. It does not appear when a folder is the only item selected.

In addition to these options, you can resize Finder windows and use the familiar red, yellow, and green buttons to close, minimize, and maximize the window.

Any settings you change for the Finder window apply until you change them again.

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