Macintosh Finder
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Screenshot of an OS X 10.10 Yosemite Finder window, displaying files in Cover Flow view.
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
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| Stable release |
10.12.3 / December 13, 2016
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| Written in | Objective-C++ |
| Operating system | Classic Mac OS, macOS, GS/OS |
| Platform | Macintosh |
| Type | File management |
| License | Proprietary software |
| Website | www |
The Finder is the default file manager and graphical user interface shell used on all Macintosh operating systems. Described in its "About" window as "The Macintosh Desktop Experience", it is responsible for the launching of other applications, and for the overall user management of files, disks, and network volumes. It was introduced with the first Macintosh computer, and also exists as part of GS/OS on the Apple IIGS. It had been rewritten completely with the release of Mac OS X in 2001.
In a tradition dating back to the Classic Mac OS of the 1980s and 1990s, the Finder icon is the smiling screen of a computer, known as the Happy Mac logo.
The Finder uses a view of the file system that is rendered using a desktop metaphor; that is, the files and folders are represented as appropriate icons. It uses a similar interface to Apple's Safari browser, where the user can click on a folder to move to it and move between locations using "back" and "forward" arrow buttons. Like Safari, the Finder uses tabs to allow the user to view multiple folders; these tabs can be pulled off the window to make them separate windows. There is a "favorites" sidebar of commonly used and important folders on the left of the Finder window.
The modern Finder uses macOS graphics APIs to display previews of a range of files, such as images, applications and PDF files. The Quick Look feature allows users to quickly examine documents and images in more detail from the finder by pressing the space bar without opening them in a separate application. The user can choose how to view files, with options such as large icons showing previews of files, a list with details such as date of last creation or modification, a "cover flow" view similar to iTunes, and a "column view" influenced by macOS's direct ancestor NeXTSTEP.
The modern Finder displays some aspects of the file system outside its windows. Mounted external volumes and disk image files can be displayed on the desktop. There is a trash can on the Dock in macOS, to which files can be dragged to mark them for deletion, and to which drives can be dragged for ejection. When a volume icon is being dragged, the Trash icon in the Dock changes to an eject icon in order to indicate this functionality. Finder can record files to optical media on the sidebar.
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