In this lesson for the Mac, I show you how to customize the toolbar in a Finder window. This includes adding a button for showing the path of the folder or adding the trash to the toolbar. I also show you how you can rearrange the items shown in a Finder window toolbar. See how to customize a Finder window toolbar in the video lesson for the Mac.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
In addition to customizing the sidebar on a Mac, we can also customize the toolbar on a Mac. Let’s take a look at customizing the toolbar in a window on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. I’m looking at my documents folder here. If we look, we have my default tools. I can go back and forth between my folders. I have different view options. I can arrange my thousand folders, and then I can also perform tasks, share, and take my files and folders, and then I have search.
The only reason I know what these icons are is that I’ve used the Mac for so long. If you’re not familiar with these icons, what you can do is you can add the name of what that icon represents. You can even remove the icons altogether. To do that, what we do is we secondary click on the toolbar. I have a trackpad something to finger tap, and you’re going to see we have three options; icon and text, icon only, and text only. When I go and select icon and text, I can now see what the icons represent. These are my view options. This is how I go back and forward.
Now, we can also remove the icons altogether. This will free up a little more space in the window because it will make our toolbar smaller. I’m on a secondary click on here and must go to text only, and now we can see we have tech stuff there. I’m going to put it back at icons. Secondary click, and we’re going to go to icon. In addition to adding the name and removing the icons, we can also add different icons and remove some of these icons.
To do that, we need to customize the toolbar, and we have a couple of different ways to do that. You already saw that we could do a secondary click, and then at the very bottom, you may have noticed that we can customize the toolbar. I select a sheet drops down, and it has various tools. Also, I can go up to view what I can go up to view, and then you’re going to see customize toolbar. Select it, and I have the same sheet that drops down. The first thing I can do is I can set what I want to see. Again, we have our icon and text, icon only, and text only.
Also, you’re going to see; I have my default set. This is my default tools. We have my back and forward, my view, and my group action share and added tags. In addition to that, you’re going to see we have some other tools. One of my favorites is, delete. I want to use delete, so I have to do is select a file and click on Delete, and we’ll move it to the trash. To add this to my toolbar, I click and drag, and now I let go. I’ve just added it to my toolbar.
Remember how we can perform a Quick ook by tapping the spacebar? We also have a button for Quick Look, let’s go on and add that. Drag it up and let go. Then we’re going to add one more, one of my favorite buttons, the path button. Click and drag, and I’ve just added that. Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to remove my tasks. I hardly ever use this because I use a secondary menu. To remove it, I drag it down, and it is no longer there. When I am finished, I click on done, and now I have my three new tools. How does this work?
Let’s say I wanted to do a quick look on the travel brochure. I can tap the spacebar, or what I can do is I can click on the eye here, and I get a quick look. This gives me a preview of the file if you recall. I’m going to close this. Let’s say I want to throw something in the trash. To do that, I have it selected, and then all I have to do is click on the trash icon, and it’ll throw it in the trash. Then one of my favorites is the path. If you recall in one of my lessons, I talked about how we can go up to the documents here, and then if I command-click on it, I can go back into previous folders into the nested folders.
The same thing with the path button, except I don’t have to use the keyboard. All I have to do is click on this, and I can see the path. Let’s go back and customize the toolbar again. I’m going to secondary click, customized toolbar. To rearrange these, we drag them. I wanted to have the path over to the left; now, it’s over the left. You’re going to see we have these rectangles here; this is a spacer. We have two different spaces. This is a fixed space which means it’s going to be a fixed size or fixed width and then this is a flexible space depending on the width of the window the width of this space will vary.
I have Get Info; this will pull up the Get Info Window on a selected file, I can easily create a new folder. If you want to bring it back to your default set, all you have to do is drag this default set to the toolbar. I’ve made a few changes to my toolbar. When I click and drag this up, what it’s going to do is it’s going to replace all the changes that I made with the default set. I’m going to let go, and now we have my default set. The nice thing about customizing toolbars is it also works with various apps.
I’m going to close this, and let’s go and open up Pages. What we’re going to do is we’re going to go on and open up lighthouses. Just open up the random document. We have our toolbar at the top. What do you think’s going to happen when I secondary click? I can set it if I want to see icon and text or the icon only. I can go and customize the toolbar. When I select this, we get a sheet that drops down, and I have more available tools. These tools are specific to Pages.
Now what I can do is make my text larger and smaller, go on group my items, and group my items. I want to print; I can add a print button. Like with the window toolbar, all I have to do is drag these up to my toolbar to change it and remove any items; I drag them off my toolbar. If you want to replace your changed toolbar with the default set, you drag this up to the top, and any changes you made to a toolbar will be replaced with the default set.
When you are finished, again, you click on done, and your changes are applied. That’s how we customize the toolbar in a window on the Mac.
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Dan
If you find it helpful, please consider joining my membership. It’s how I am able to keep creating these lessons and tips.
Thanks!
Dan
If you find it helpful, please consider joining my membership. It’s how I am able to keep creating these lessons and tips.
Thanks!
Dan
If you find it helpful, please consider joining my membership. It’s how I am able to keep creating these lessons and tips.
Thanks!
Dan
If you find it helpful, please consider joining my membership. It’s how I am able to keep creating these lessons and tips.
Thanks!
Dan
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