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Show me the Path…Finder!



André Corbin | Wed, Dec 2, 2009

Open the Finder, on the Menu bar, select View, then click “Show Path Bar” to enable a graphical representation of your folder path.  See below for a screenshot of the Path Bar.showpathbar

Here’s my Path Bar.   I’m in /balrog0/Users/Shared

bottom of finder path bar

If you’re used to working in the Terminal…then you know that know which path you’re in is pretty important;  there’s nothing like doing rm -Rf *.* in the wrong directory.  Anyway, if you want to see the UNIX path in the Finder, do the following:

Open Terminal and type or paste the following and hit enter:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Restart the Finder or restart your computer.  To restart the Finder, press the following key combo:

Cmd option Esc.  This will bring up the Application Kill window.  Select the Finder, click restart.

For the UNIX/LInux geeks, just do:

ps aux | grep Finder

find the process ID and…

sudo kill -9 <process id>

The Finder will automatically restart.

After performing either of the aforementioned methods for killing the Finder, open a new Finder window (if one does not open automagically).
Look at the top of the window and you will notice the UNIX path in the title.   /balrog0/Users/Shared is shown in the screenshot below.

posix path in finder

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2 Responses to “Show me the Path…Finder!”

  1. Joshua Schnell Says:

    You can also do ‘killall Finder’ in the terminal. Saves you from having to track down the process. :)

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  2. Andre Corbin Says:

    You definitely could use killall. I don’t use it because it has the potential to be dangerous. I prefer to use kill on the specific process ID; It’s more precise. kill -15 is also more gentle than -9. -15 allows the application end gracefully…-9 just kills it…brute force style.

    Reply


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