How to use new features of Finder in macOS Mojave

Finder, the equivalent to Explorer in Windows 10, has been enabled with a set of small but very useful features in macOS Mojave. It makes sure that you can get work done faster without opening Preview application or Cover Flow and so on. If you upgraded to macOS Mojave, find out how you can use new features of Finder in macOS Mojave to improve productivity.

How to use new features of Finder in macOS Mojave

Quick actions in Finder

When you select List or Column view in Finder for a folder and select an image or PDF file, Mojave offers few tools which you can use on the image without opening the Preview app. You get three tools or buttons at the bottom of the metadata preview: Rorate, Markup, and More.

1] Rotate: It appears as Rotate Left which changes to Rotate-Right when you hold the Option key. You can quickly change the orientation from here.

Quick Actions for Preview

2] Markup:

For images, when you click on this button, it will open the image in a new window which looks like Preview, but it isn’t the full-fledged Preview app. Using this Markup tool you can Add Text, draw, rotate, crop and so on.

Quick Preview Windows

When you select multiple images, right click and look for Quick Actions > Create PDF. This will convert multiple images into one single PDF file. You also have the option to rotate left or rotate right (when the option button is pressed)

Create PDF file with images

For Videos, the Markup button becomes a Trim button. You can click on it, and select the start and end point to trim down the videos.

Trim Videos using Quick Actions in Finder macOS Mojave

3] More button defaults to creating a PDF of an image file. For videos, you only get customize. When you click on customize, you can choose to keep or remove Rotate, Markup, Create PDF and Trim.

Customise Quick Actions

Gallery view instead of Cover Flow

Cover Flow has been replaced by Gallery View. While it’s almost the same thing, it replaces list of files below it with preview or list of thumbnails which you can scroll through horizontally. You can always hit the space bar to open in quick preview window as before.

Gallery View in macOS Mojave

So not only it is easy to navigate because you see more because of thumbnail, you also get to see more of the image and document. Apart from this, you have metadata pane on the right with quick actions to rename, and perform some quick actions.

Hide Metadata Preview

There is a new panel on the right of the finder which offers quick actions, and access to Metadata. This can be useful for many who deal with images, and documents in daily basis. However, you can hide them if you don’t deal with lot of images on daily basis. Go to  View > Hide Preview. That said, it doesn’t increase the size of the preview images.

Let us know if these new features of Finder in macOS Mojave are actually useful? Do you think Cover Flow was better than gallery view?

About the author

Ashish Mohta

Ashish is an Android, Macbook user who excels in writing tips, tricks, and features on it to improve your day to day experience with your devices.