{"slug": "finder", "name": "Finder", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 20, "warners": 13, "score": -7.467, "rising": 2.67, "first": "2025-11-23", "latest": "2026-10-09", "why": "I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 13}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 3, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Finder"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 793535344, "item_id": 49595959, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595959", "by": "thrwkmmshf00083", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I never understood all the complaints about Finder.", "excerpt": "Why not just enable the path / breadcrumb bar that shows at the bottom of the window and lets you copy a path or open a terminal via the context menu? I currently don't have a Mac in reach but I'm pretty sure the option for that is in the \"view\" menu. Not a fan of Apples approach of making many functions invisible but I never understood all the complaints about Finder. I use Arch, MacOS and Windows (if I have to) and", "context": "uses Arch, macOS and Windows", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793516832, "item_id": 49594802, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594802", "by": "iamcalledrob", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder.", "excerpt": "It's funny, as a 20+ year macOS user, I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder. I don't think it's that Finder is brilliant -- it just encourages a unique set of power user workflows that aren't replicated elsewhere. For example, Open/Save panels that act as drop targets, and navigate to the dropped file's parent folder. I use this all the time, and it drives me nuts when I can't do this on Linux ", "context": "20+ year macOS user", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793500560, "item_id": 49593785, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593785", "by": "Sat_P", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve always been able to find most things with Finder.", "excerpt": "Since buying an M1 Mac at launch, I\u2019ve always been able to find most things with Finder. Prior to that, I was a Windows user since school in the 1990s, and windows search was absolutely useless. So glad I moved to Mac.", "context": "M1 Mac user, formerly Windows", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "Windows Search", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 781163344, "item_id": 48822709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822709", "by": "andrekandre", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "i love column view in finder", "excerpt": "i have a theory: all file browsers suck, they just suck in different ways for different people my other theory is that its entirely possible to make a good file browser, but nowadays theres not much investment in them beyond fixing major issues for most users... > I don\u2019t quite understand the discontent with the Finder for the most part its got a lot better over the years (old pathfinder user here) but for me anyways", "context": "old Path Finder user", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Fast, native Mac file manager (filters, fuzzy find, 9 MB, no Electron)"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800284752, "item_id": 50017797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017797", "by": "where-group-by", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is still terrible though.", "excerpt": "I have been using Mac since 2018 daily on my day job and I still get confused by the symbols. I wish there was some system option to always display them as words or abbreviations (CMD etc) instead. But I did get used to the navigation and basic shortcuts after a while. Using the terminal/keyboard/IDE shortcuts (which I can set up myself) for most of the work helps a lot. Finder is still terrible though.", "context": "daily Mac user since 2018", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Keyboard differences between Windows and Macs"}, {"id": 797297952, "item_id": 49831122, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831122", "by": "orbital-decay", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "that's probably the worst non-power-user file manager in existence", "excerpt": ">Many of the UX \"solutions\" are either invented problems or not my problems or worse, grinding some anti-me agenda. >These UI \"innovations\" are great for movie props but do they actually help in reality? Not that I see. Scott Jenson specifically mentioned in this talk that he doesn't view open source devs as programmers who couldn't care less about needs of non-power users, but this is exactly that sort of a tone dea", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 793933776, "item_id": 49620861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620861", "by": "eviks", "date": "2026-09-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a real pro file manager from the toy of Finder", "excerpt": "Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters! But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor. And NM you jump faster by 5 files. And the ability to change shortcuts easily And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path. And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for ea", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793494770, "item_id": 49593423, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593423", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard", "excerpt": "For the main pane? I used to have Windows Explorer with the column view in the main pane and the tree view on the left pane and it was perfect. I don't really mind Nautilus with the breadcrumbs on the top and columns in the main pane. But I think simply going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard unless you navigated there manually, but I'm usually in finder because of `open ~/Folder/Path` and so I end up manu", "context": "", "use_case": "file navigation on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}]}], "who": [{"by": "thrwkmmshf00083", "context": "uses Arch, macOS and Windows", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595959", "date": "2026-09-07"}, {"by": "iamcalledrob", "context": "20+ year macOS user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594802", "date": "2026-09-07"}, {"by": "Sat_P", "context": "M1 Mac user, formerly Windows", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593785", "date": "2026-09-07"}, {"by": "andrekandre", "context": "old Path Finder user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822709", "date": "2026-07-07"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["file management", "file management on macos", "file search", "file navigation on macos", "miller columns file browsing", "macos file manager"], "compared": [{"slug": "path-finder", "name": "Path Finder", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "forklift", "name": "Forklift", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "nautilus", "name": "Nautilus", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "alfred", "name": "Alfred", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589722", "title": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one", "mentions": 11}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814952", "title": "Show HN: Fast, native Mac file manager (filters, fuzzy find, 9 MB, no Electron)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015515", "title": "Keyboard differences between Windows and Macs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49825642", "title": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433292", "title": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093130", "title": "The Lisa: Apple's Most Influential Failure (2023)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"warn": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"warn": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"warn": 7, "neutral": 2, "recommend": 3}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800284752, "item_id": 50017797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017797", "by": "where-group-by", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is still terrible though.", "excerpt": "I have been using Mac since 2018 daily on my day job and I still get confused by the symbols. I wish there was some system option to always display them as words or abbreviations (CMD etc) instead. But I did get used to the navigation and basic shortcuts after a while. Using the terminal/keyboard/IDE shortcuts (which I can set up myself) for most of the work helps a lot. Finder is still terrible though.", "context": "daily Mac user since 2018", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Keyboard differences between Windows and Macs"}, {"id": 797297952, "item_id": 49831122, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831122", "by": "orbital-decay", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "that's probably the worst non-power-user file manager in existence", "excerpt": ">Many of the UX \"solutions\" are either invented problems or not my problems or worse, grinding some anti-me agenda. >These UI \"innovations\" are great for movie props but do they actually help in reality? Not that I see. Scott Jenson specifically mentioned in this talk that he doesn't view open source devs as programmers who couldn't care less about needs of non-power users, but this is exactly that sort of a tone dea", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 793933776, "item_id": 49620861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620861", "by": "eviks", "date": "2026-09-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a real pro file manager from the toy of Finder", "excerpt": "Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters! But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor. And NM you jump faster by 5 files. And the ability to change shortcuts easily And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path. And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for ea", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793543920, "item_id": 49596495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49596495", "by": "antfarm", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It works fine for me, I use the column view", "excerpt": "It works fine for me, I use the column view (unless I want to sort) and don't use groups (uncheck Edit > Use Groups). Back in the MacOS 7.5 days I had a system extension that gave me the column view I knew from my university's NeXT workstations. For more complex file operations, there is Terminal.", "context": "", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793535344, "item_id": 49595959, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595959", "by": "thrwkmmshf00083", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I never understood all the complaints about Finder.", "excerpt": "Why not just enable the path / breadcrumb bar that shows at the bottom of the window and lets you copy a path or open a terminal via the context menu? I currently don't have a Mac in reach but I'm pretty sure the option for that is in the \"view\" menu. Not a fan of Apples approach of making many functions invisible but I never understood all the complaints about Finder. I use Arch, MacOS and Windows (if I have to) and", "context": "uses Arch, macOS and Windows", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793516832, "item_id": 49594802, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594802", "by": "iamcalledrob", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder.", "excerpt": "It's funny, as a 20+ year macOS user, I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder. I don't think it's that Finder is brilliant -- it just encourages a unique set of power user workflows that aren't replicated elsewhere. For example, Open/Save panels that act as drop targets, and navigate to the dropped file's parent folder. I use this all the time, and it drives me nuts when I can't do this on Linux ", "context": "20+ year macOS user", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793500560, "item_id": 49593785, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593785", "by": "Sat_P", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve always been able to find most things with Finder.", "excerpt": "Since buying an M1 Mac at launch, I\u2019ve always been able to find most things with Finder. Prior to that, I was a Windows user since school in the 1990s, and windows search was absolutely useless. So glad I moved to Mac.", "context": "M1 Mac user, formerly Windows", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "Windows Search", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793494770, "item_id": 49593423, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593423", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard", "excerpt": "For the main pane? I used to have Windows Explorer with the column view in the main pane and the tree view on the left pane and it was perfect. I don't really mind Nautilus with the breadcrumbs on the top and columns in the main pane. But I think simply going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard unless you navigated there manually, but I'm usually in finder because of `open ~/Folder/Path` and so I end up manu", "context": "", "use_case": "file navigation on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793450819, "item_id": 49590676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590676", "by": "hn_throw2025", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is terrible", "excerpt": "I went through similar feelings switching to the Mac ecosystem (from Linux) in 2012... But I quickly settled on some tools I wouldn't be without now. Finder is terrible, but I switched for Forklift early on. I think it's amazing, so much better than the Gnome and KDE file managers I used before. It covers so many bases, from being a twin-pane orthodox manager, directory comparer and synchroniser, bulk regex renamer, ", "context": "switched from Linux to Mac in 2012", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793442592, "item_id": 49590162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590162", "by": "gedy", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it's one of the only FM that supports Miller columns, which I use quite a bit.", "excerpt": "Finder is really limited in many ways but it's one of the only FM that supports Miller columns, which I use quite a bit.", "context": "", "use_case": "Miller columns file browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793439793, "item_id": 49589987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589987", "by": "SwellJoe", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is weird for the sake of being weird.", "excerpt": "My most recent laptop purchase was a Macbook Pro, because the price/performance is just so lopsided with the price of memory pushing everything up to Apple-like prices, it didn't make sense to buy an x86 laptop. But, coming from Linux it's a miserable user experience. I genuinely hate macOS. Every time I use it, I'm surprised by some weird thing about it, some limitation, some annoyance, some weird bug. Installing so", "context": "coming from Linux", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793439361, "item_id": 49589960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589960", "by": "GiorgioG", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "in general I find Finder pretty lacking", "excerpt": "He\u2019s complaining\u2026because he sells a solution to this problem. I hated Finder when I switched to Mac back in 2007. So much so I bought PathFinder. One thing that pissed me off and still does, is when I copy over a folder with the same name, it doesn\u2019t merge the contents, it deletes everything in the existing folder. That\u2019s not what I expected as a Windows user and it still seems like the wrong behavior almost 20 years", "context": "switched from Windows to Mac in 2007", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 793439024, "item_id": 49589939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589939", "by": "arisAlexis", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "how can this be so bad after decades and why is everyone cool with it", "excerpt": "Recently switched to Mac and I always have this question mark like how can this be so bad after decades and why is everyone cool with it", "context": "recently switched to Mac", "use_case": "macOS file manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 791126433, "item_id": 49445402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445402", "by": "unsnap_biceps", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I live with safari and finder and all my office ware is native (mail.app) or web based (Google Docs).", "excerpt": "I live with safari and finder and all my office ware is native (mail.app) or web based (Google Docs). Chat is via slack, but I use the website and not the native app. I've adapted to the quirks and I'd bet that's a lot of the reason why it doesn't feel slow to me. I feel I have plenty of windows open at once but likely less than you do. Different folks different strokes as they say.", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 785690368, "item_id": 49105648, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49105648", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Think Apple's infuriating Finder.", "excerpt": "Funny, the rage seems to be text now (chat) Graphics generators don't seem to convey anything, and often give themselves away with grossly misspelled words. I suppose that whatever emerges from the current situation as actually useful might be encapsulated in a \"regular\" app or web app. Only crazies like me (and HN) favor text, especially when videos and shorts seemed to bury it. Though, I still have fun mashing up g", "context": "", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Lisa: Apple's Most Influential Failure (2023)"}, {"id": 781163344, "item_id": 48822709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822709", "by": "andrekandre", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "i love column view in finder", "excerpt": "i have a theory: all file browsers suck, they just suck in different ways for different people my other theory is that its entirely possible to make a good file browser, but nowadays theres not much investment in them beyond fixing major issues for most users... > I don\u2019t quite understand the discontent with the Finder for the most part its got a lot better over the years (old pathfinder user here) but for me anyways", "context": "old Path Finder user", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Fast, native Mac file manager (filters, fuzzy find, 9 MB, no Electron)"}, {"id": 781057008, "item_id": 48816063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48816063", "by": "HeavyStorm", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is terrible.", "excerpt": "Just switched from windows to Mac and the rumors are true. Finder is terrible.", "context": "switched from Windows to Mac", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Fast, native Mac file manager (filters, fuzzy find, 9 MB, no Electron)"}, {"id": 766751680, "item_id": 47921980, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47921980", "by": "jshaqaw", "date": "2026-04-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is an underpowered mess", "excerpt": "Can we add to the software failure list that Finder is an underpowered mess? Like the author said, fixing Finder won't have a correspondingly visible ROI. But haven't any of the Apple developers using these machines just said \"ENOUGH\" already. I used to like Pathfinder and was willing to just pay for that as an alternative but that software is just buggy enough that it's annoying to rely on for something as important", "context": "", "use_case": "file management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tim Cook Is Leaving. Good"}, {"id": 747739024, "item_id": 46733689, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46733689", "by": "DamnInteresting", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "this setup causes any open Finder windows to render on top of all other windows for ~1 second when switching desktops", "excerpt": "On MacOS I use multiple desktops, and I have Finder assigned to \"All Desktops\" since it is useful to interact with so many other apps. For several major OS releases now, this setup causes any open Finder windows to render on top of all other windows for ~1 second when switching desktops. It creates an annoying lag, and pollutes what would otherwise be a smooth, pleasant experience.", "context": "macOS user with multiple desktops", "use_case": "file management on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bugs Apple Loves"}, {"id": 736403312, "item_id": 46025207, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46025207", "by": "hexbin010", "date": "2025-11-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Finder is indeed garbage!", "excerpt": "I don't know why Gnome et al switched to imitating MacOS \u2013 adopting a dock (as a default), ditching an app window tray as on Windows, when the potential Windows-convert market is much larger than Mac. The Dock can be really jarring for Windows users - they are coming from an OS literally called windows, and the windows are hidden from view. It also eats vertical space with those huge icons, which is precious given th", "context": "", "use_case": "file manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gnome is better macOS than macOS"}]}