macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

Windows and How to Work Them

In designing macOS, one of Apple’s key goals was to address the window-proliferation problem. As you create more files, stash them in more folders, and launch more programs, it’s easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with overlapping rectangles.

That’s the problem admirably addressed by Mission Control, described in detail in Exiting Split Screen Mode. Some handy clutter and navigation controls are built into the windows themselves, too. For example:

The Sidebar

The Sidebar (Figure 2-3) is the pane at the left side of every Finder window, unless you’ve hidden it. (It’s also at the left side of every Open dialog box and every full-sized Save dialog box.) It’s slightly translucent—your desktop picture shines through it just a little bit.

The Sidebar has as many as four sections, each preceded by a collapsible heading.

Tip

If you point to a heading without clicking, a tiny Hide or Show button appears. Click it to collapse or expand that heading’s contents.

Here are the headings you’ll soon know and love. (You can drag these headings up and down in the Sidebar to rearrange them.)

• Favorites. This primary section of the Sidebar is the place to stash things for easy access. You can stock this list with the icons of disks, files, programs, folders, and the virtual, self-updating folders called saved searches.

  Each icon is a shortcut. For example, click the Applications icon to view the contents of your Applications folder in the main part of the window. And ...