Customize the Finder Toolbar in Mac OS X [Mac Tip]

Quite a few Mac users will go about their daily business without ever customizing the finder window. Some might add some folders or files into the sidebar, but that will be the extent of their modifications. One really useful feature of the finder is the ability to customize the toolbar. Today you will learn how to not only customize the buttons of the finder’s toolbar but also add folders and even applications. Right-click (control-click for you one-button mouse types) anywhere in the finder’s toolbar area, and select “customize toolbar” to begin.


Feel free to add and remove (by dragging) anything here you like, I recommend leaving the navigation ‘Back’ buttons and the ‘View’ selector. Adding the ‘Get Info’ button can be very useful and if you connect to other machines frequently then drag up the ‘Connect’ button as well. Once you are finished with the default options we’ll move on to adding files and folders…

Adding Folders/Files

The trick is to drag … then pause for a second

Nearly any file, folder, or even shortcut can be dragged onto the finder’s toolbar. The trick is to drag the selected icon to the toolbar and then pause for a second until the finder recognizes what you are doing (see below), then simply let go of the icon. Really easy huh? You can add frequently used folders and files that you might not want in the sidebar.

One useful approach is to add folders located on an external volume, such as a memory stick or ipod; the sidebar has trouble with links such as these but the toolbar works like a charm. Add as many files and folders as you like and then we’ll get to the really exciting part…

Adding Frequently Used Applications

Why would this be useful?

Now the really exciting part! One of the most powerful tricks with the finder toolbar is to add frequently used applications — such as TextEdit.app, Preview.app, iSync.app, or anything else you use often. What makes this so powerful is that you can drag files onto these ‘toolbar applications’ in order to open the file. Why would this be useful? — can’t you just double click to open a file? Well, suppose you have an .html file that you would like to open in a text editor. One approach would be to right click and use the ‘open with’ interface but that is often very slow. Now you can just drag that .html file onto TextEdit or TextWrangler (see below) and edit to your heart’s content.

This is also really useful when Adobe Creative Suite products such as Photoshop try to take control of your .jpg and .png file-types. Now if you just want to view the image you can quickly drag it onto your Preview.app icon in the toolbar!