Learn how to view information about a document on the Mac.
In this lesson for macOS Mojave, I look at how we can view document information about a file on the Mac. This information includes the size, file type, when it was created and modified, the default application it opens with, and more.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction: In this video, we’re going to look at how we can view document information, including when the document was created, when it was modified, and which application is going to open it. Let’s take a look at how we can view document information on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. Let’s go and open up a new finder window. Command-N, and now I have my window. Let’s go and look at this image here.
Viewing Document Information or Metadata: What I want to do is, I want to view information about this image. When was this image created? Has it been modified, and If it’s been modified, when was it modified? Which app is going to open it?
To view all of the document information, we first have to select the documents, so I’m going to select this. Now what we do is we go up to file on the menu bar, and you’re going to see, get info. When I select this, we’re going to get a new window that opens up.
Using Key Commands to View Document Information: Of course, my favorite way of getting information is using command-I. Let’s select this, and now we have our new window. We can go and add tags to this. We can see what kind of an image is, the size, where it is located, and when it was created and modified.
If I want to lock this, I can go on lock this image or this document. Let’s take a look at more info. I click on the little triangle here, and now I have more info. In this case, being that it’s an image, I can see what type of camera took it, when it was last opened, the focal length, and if there was any red-eye. I keep scrolling up; I have name and extension. This is the name, and I can go and change the name. The extension, which is what the JPEG stands for, tells the MAC what to open it up in. By default, my Mac is going to open up JPEGs in preview.
Now, from here, what I can do is, I can go and change which app it opens up in. If I want to hide the extension, I select hide extension. Then I would see the name. I like to know the extension because then it gives me a bit of a hint of what type of file it is. If there are any comments, I would be able to see any comments. Then I also have a preview. Let’s go and close this window. Let’s take a look at my travel brochure. This time what I’m going to do is, I’m going to use the secondary menu. I have a trackpad, so now I use a two-fingered tap, I have my secondary menu.
You can also use a control-click. Now I go to get info. Selected, and now we can see the information for this document. This is a pages document. It’s 8.4 megabytes. I can see when it was created when it was modified, what app was going to open it up. If I wanted to select a different app to open this up in, I can select a different app, and then I also have the preview.
That’s how we can view the information about a document on the Mac.