> The Finder made all the same mistakes as Windows did.
Tbf, the Finder is still crap (if only it would be nearly as good as Windows Explorer was in its heyday I would probably use it more), and the UNIX terminal is pretty much needed to make a Mac usable in the first place - which is fine though, because the UNIX-ness was exactly why I switched to Mac ;)
> Tbf, the Finder is still crap (if only it would be nearly as good as Windows Explorer was in its heyday I would probably use it more)
I have the exact opposite opinion. I loathe Windows Explorer, and relatively simply stuff like presenting a tree view is apparently some weird magic trick that only Apple has figured out how to do.
Browsing SMB shares (or any other networked storage) is one shortcut away (cmd+k), and I don't need to visit control panel to enable weird subsystems that expose services on my machine to connect to other machines.
I use the terminal a lot, also for simple file operations, but that is because of proficiency, not out of need.
...but the SMB implementation on macOS is shit.
Try to browse any network directory with a non-trivial amount of files and see the whole Finder window just beach-ball or freeze.
I can browse my NAS faster via a browser and copyparty[0] than with Finder and SMB or NFS...
[0] https://github.com/9001/copyparty
Yeah I don’t know how they made it so bad. On Windows & Linux, using an SMB share basically gives you the same experience as using a USB hard drive connected directly to the machine. On Mac, you have to wait 30 seconds every time you open a directory. Then when you’re finally at the directory you want and start copying files, the speed slows down to a crawl as the copy progresses. I find it especially confusing because Apple offers 10 Gbit networking for their desktops at an additional fee. What’s the point of having that option when their shitty SMB implementation makes doing anything on your LAN far slower than 1 Gbit anyway?
Finder isnt crap?
Why can't i paste a path and just go to it like I can in Windows or KDE, why can't I cut and paste files? Why do i have to open 2 separate windows and drag the files between them?
Who decided that it is somehow useful to leave an applocation running when you close its window?
There are so many silly and stupid small things wrong with os x
You can:
Copy current path: Option + Command + C [1] Cut & paste: Alt + Command + Move (actually moves the file)
It's just bad that these simple things are very much hidden.
[1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/47216/copying-the-...
It moves the file? That's not the use case. The use case is copying a path and pasting it into the address bar of Explorer, and then Explorer showing the contents of the path. No file action is implied.
Shift-Command-G - "Go to folder..."
"Why can't i paste a path and just go to it like I can in Windows or KDE?"
on my Mac, the finder systematically fails to display the most recent downloaded files, or files synchronized through Nextcloud, under "recent files". For some reason, it always displays some random selection of recently used files. It's completely useless. In fact, I look for recent files using "find" in the terminal. At least this work.
On my Linux laptop, Nautilus (Gnome) displays exactly the last files in the right order, and it's incredibly useful.
There are countless annoyances like this on MacOS; window focus and placement always surprises and annoys me, even if Rectangle helps somewhat. I find it so much less usable and useful than Gnome.
>or files synchronized through Nextcloud, under "recent files"
Are those created/updated with the current date when they sync, or with the date they have on the host system?
How is \\server\share any harder than finder?
You have to type it.
Finder shows them in the sidebar and you just click on it.
Apple OS (both classic and NeXTStep) are not keyboard driven but mouse driven.
Same for Explorer, really. The SMB hosts that announce themselves show up in the sidebar.
>I loathe Windows Explorer, and relatively simply stuff like presenting a tree view is apparently some weird magic trick that only Apple has figured out how to do.
Is this a joke? This has to be a joke. Finder is so lame compared to Explorer that I'm reading it as a joke.
>Browsing SMB shares (or any other networked storage) is one shortcut away (cmd+k), and I don't need to visit control panel to enable weird subsystems that expose services on my machine to connect to other machines.
Uh... MacOS is nowhere near easier with SMB shares than Windows. You are dead wrong about all of this. SMB works out-of-the-box with Windows, you open Explorer and the "Network" is there, which will show available network shares. You could make it an icon on the desktop if you wanted to and then just click to open (not how I would do it, but you could). Or you can type \\servername in the Explorer address bar and get a list of all its shares, and there are probably many other ways for different use cases too.
MacOS has been difficult with SMB shares for us, especially with Finder - when we mount an SMB share in Finder they just stop responding eventually for no reason, there's no error - they just can't be reached anymore, requiring us to re-mount the share. But on Windows they always just work, no exception, no problem, 100% of the time - and no, that is not an exaggeration. There's very few things in tech that I would say works 100% of the time for me, but SMB on Windows is one of them.
Of course, it's all about what you're used to. But after 6 years on Windows as my daily driver I still prefer Finder.
It's tree/table view is superior to the Details view in Explorer. Explorer regularly hangs when opening folders with more than a couple videos in it. QuickLook (spacebar to preview an item) is so useful.
While I agree with your overall 4-letter assessment, Windows Explorer in any so-called "heyday" was always deserving of your same 4-letter assessment in comparison to Apple Finder.
Until the day when I can right-click on a folder and create a folder inside that folder, I'll consider the Finder inferior to the Windows 98 explorer. Come on, that's an absolute basic feature!
The right-click context menu of a folder has 15 items! Most of them I've never used! Colors, tags, quick actions, compress, make alias? But no "New Folder"?
But I moved to the mac, in 2005, because of the unix terminal. I had been using Cygwin for years, but an OS that had it included, natively? On good hardware? Yes, please.
I'm never moving back to Windows (ads in the OS??). To switch to linux it would take great hardware with 100% support. Not holding my breath, but it might happen one day.
> Tbf, the Finder is still crap (if only it would be nearly as good as Windows Explorer was in its heyday I would probably use it more)
Try Alfred :)
Or Marta. Finder is an absolute piece of sh*t.
Windows Explorer was never good. The only file manager app type (on Windows/Linux, never used a Mac) that makes sense to me is one of the "Commander" ones. Like Total Commander, but rather than a specific app the point here is the two-pane style that greatly expands what is easily possible to do with a few clicks.
What's crap about Finder?
For me, the keyboard (in)accessibility is the biggest issue. On Windows I got used to navigating Explorer completely with the keyboard — this was a LONG time ago, I have no idea of the current state. On macOS, it's just impossible (or, at the very least (but I doubt), impractical).
Other issues:
- the fact that you cannot cut and paste files
- dragging files from one folder to another can be unreliable/error-prone, particularly in tree view
> - the fact that you cannot cut and paste files
Back in time I also complained about this, but do you know that if you copy (CMD+C) then do CMD+ALT+V, then copy&paste becomes cut&paste ?
Also cmd-up arrow and cmd-down arrow to go up and down folders.
You can also click on the title to get a list view of the current folder and its parents.
Thanks for the tip. It's not as convenient as CMD+X, CMD+V, but I might see if I can commit it to memory.
I have a hard time remembering this. But there’s also right-click, then Option to show secondary options (Copy becomes Move)
I lost track of how many times ive lost data to cut.
I cannot right-click and create a new file.
The "Recents" doesn't contain files I've recently interacted with, and I'm still not sure what qualifies a file to be listed in Recents.
Every time I need to browse to a specific path I have to google it, because there is no path input anywhere.
(It's Shift+Cmd+G of course)
They also screwed up cmd-shift-g a few versions ago where if you type, say, /Users/me/Documents, it puts you in /Users/me. Now you have to put in /Users/me/Documents/ if you actually want that folder. Then of course the autocomplete wasn’t changed as well, so if you start typing and then cursor down to the completion and hit enter, it doesn’t fill in the slash, so it goes to the parent folder. You have to cursor down, press tab, so it fills in the trailing slash, then hit enter.
It’s theoretically a small annoyance, but it gets me a few times a week since I had muscle memory for the old, correct way. I’ve filed several radars over the years and never heard back. It’s one of those things that makes me want to get a job at Apple, fix the bug, and quit.
Incidentally, this was one of the nice little things that made me switch to the Mac many years ago. There wasn’t any way to my knowledge that you could switch to a path in windows by typing it out from inside explorer.
If you use the terminal at all just cd to your directory of choose and then do open .
It's in the menu bar under "Go…" or something similar.
(I'm not on a desktop right now, so I can't be precise.)
It's slow and doesn't... find stuff.
Most of the time when someone on HN complains about Finder, it's not a Finder problem. It's that the user doesn't know how to do what they want, and other people respond with the answer.
Finder has its problems. But the overarching problem is that Apple has done a poor job of discoverability and letting people know how to do things.
It's counterintuitive, because in most of Apple's macOS programs there are multiple ways to do the same thing.
For example, there are close to a dozen ways to eject/unmount a disk/volume, but I still run into people who say they can't figure out how to do it.
I think the problem is that Finder searches too much stuff by default. The same problem is true of modern windows search, iOS search, and Android.
First thing I do on all of them is have it only search local stuff. If I want to do a damn web search I'll open my browser of choice and use Kagi. On iOS I restrict it even further to only show local apps and settings. Massively improves the speed, latency, etc etc.
You're describing Spotlight. Finder is the file manager.