Inspector? Another slightly hidden OS X tool?

This may not be new for some people but it rocked my world today. I’ve never run across a reference to Inspector in other tips or feature lists, so I’m going to share with you.

So, you need info for multiple items in the Finder, whether it be folders, pictures, music or whatever. Typically, I would select all the items I want info for, Right(Control) – click and then click ‘Get Info’. And then your screen is a mess of Info panes. This is where Inspector steps in.

If you select just one item, Right(Control) – click and then hit Option, it acts as a modifier for a number of the tools presented. The one we want to notice is it changes ‘Get Info’ to Show Inspector.’ Clicking this brings up an Info pane as usual but where it differs is when you select a new item or folder. BAM! The info pane changes too! This allows you to scroll through a list of files using the arrow keys, getting separate info for each item without cluttering your screen completely.

This is just so fandangled that I’m going to show you in screen shots.

First, a typical Right(Control) – Click brings up a menu looking like this:

Second, a Right(Control) – Click – Option brings up the new menu looking like this:

This modifier also allows for several other useful features. One is that if you use Inspector on multiple items it will give you the total size of your selected items. Another is that it will Quick Look at things in a slideshow rather than individually. The last thing I love about this Right(Control) – Click – Option is that it changes ‘Open With’ to ‘Always Open With’.

For clarification Right(Control) – Click means that you can Right Click or Control Click. For example, if you don’t have two finger right click enabled on your Macbook, you need to hit Control to emulate the second mouse button. This does not mean to hold Control and Right-Click.

Have fun and let us know if you have any other tips and tricks.

Basically, I'm a Mac Nerd. Love using them, learning them and collecting them.