Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

Windows was bad but at least Explorer (windows 10 version anyway) let you easily SEE the file system

I’m sure as hell not buying a subscription project to fix that though lololol

I've had to use Finder, and it's definitely frustrating in a "Think Different" sort of way, but this article doesn't actually mention why beyond vague statements.

Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode.

I simply don't understand how Apple has the reputation it has.

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 (Nautilus) and Windows. Enter to rename, too. These habits are very hard to break!

The deciders for me, in case you're interested:

- Privacy. It doesn't look like you are trying to get my data. I'll be using network monitoring to verify.

- Automatically groups like files, regardless of file location. Yes, I know I can do this manually with tags, but I... don't.

- Polish. The screenshots make it look like a native interface. Bonus points if I can set it to hide until mouseover, like my dock bar.

I'm most curious about how it will function alongside Dropbox, particularly with cloud-stored files. I have several times my HDD in Dropbox (largely in folders shared with me); I know Keptor won't be able to read stub files, but if it greedily downloads and fills up my HDD it'll be an instant day-killer and uninstall. If it reads on-device files, and then stores a sparse representation so it can still present them in a list once they've been removed to the cloud it'll be great; I will manually sync and de-sync some folders to get them into the data. (If it incrementally syncs cloud files to my device, reads them, and then pushes them back up it'd be amazing, and I'll buy a lifetime license immediately - but I'm not sure those permissions exist.)

But these are complaints. The right answer is to see if I can build a file explorer for MacOS that behaves in the fashion I desire.

This went into a direction I didn't expect at all.

The (hard) problem is that almost every finder alternative/add-on I've tried is someone else's ideal workflow that still doesn't sit well with me. I find KDE's Dolphin similarly frustrating - for very similar reasons.

Both work marginally better (for me) when used in concert with the quick-find tools like Alfred (or Spotlight) and KRunner. None of these are perfect.

Showerthought: maybe the "find files" interfaces aren't the worst offenders; maybe it's the "place files" workflows that are problematic and we're trying to solve the wrong problem?

Why is seemingly every single person on HN unhappy with the Finder?

I’m no Apple fanboy, but blind hate is just as bad as blind love, and so far 100% of the specifics brought up have turned out to be people who just don’t have a basic familiarity with the software. I genuinely don’t begrudge a person sticking to what they know, but it’s a point towards what’s good for you and maybe whether it’s intuitive, not towards whether Finder is objectively good or lacks features. I’d be happy to read both real issues and people learning more about Finder, but just “Finder sucks” doesn’t help anybody.

Fair, that is something I've observed since the introduction of iOS, where most users don't navigate folders and open files, but flip it and open an app and browse the recent files.

As for Finder itself, the column view and hit-space-to-preview is all I want for my basic needs and I miss it whenever I have to use Windows. Can't speak to other systems.

By no means perfect but it's helping solve my moodboarding needs.

Does anyone else experience this? Like it freezes when searching for programs?

The Risc OS filer remains king, largely because managing windows on Risc OS is much more tolerable.

And we've been using the Dewey Decimal System for like 150 years. Both are good systems. Kepter (a visual/gallery system) would break down when looking at more than a dozen files (or when files are very similar). I don't really think it's a good idea.

What we desperately need is a system-wide (or at least documents-wide) semantic/vector search, which is basically a weekend project and a $4.99 one-time purchase.

[1]: https://sindresorhus.com/supercharge

With that aside, this is a great idea for most files. Of course my images are still in folders with the projects they belong to, but my life photos are in one stream. Files, contacts, a lot of data would benefit greatly from this visualization.

As for people with 1000 files on their desktop, who cares, they are as good as hoarders and they get what it comes to them. Discipline helps both in the real and in the digital world.

1. When I right click, I can't create a new file of any kind. I can create a new folder—sometimes (see the next point).

2. If the folder is full, it's virtually impossible to right-click an empty spot to create a new folder. You have to scroll all the way to the top/bottom and right click the very narrow spot between the folder and the header/footer.

But I see not a single comment recommending one? No good UI ones on macOS?

Say what you want about Finder, but only a Windows devotee would dare put Explorer in a pile of anything to emulate. It is the worst of all possibilities and in that sense fits the host OS to a "T"

"Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If anything, this should be a Show HN.

"I discovered that his Desktop contained more than 1,000 files."

I finally go the hang of downloads and documents.

Finder doesnt find crap

The vertical column mode is useless as file names are always too long. It forces you to drag and drop and open loads of windows rather than cut and paste via menus. Open vs rename is fucked up. Half the machine is hidden initially. Hiding file extensions is just broken. Every view seems to forget what state it’s in. The file copying and continue copying thing fucks up network drives. cp is actually an order of magnitude faster. The icons at the top are shit. All the keyboard shortcuts require mutant hands that only emacs users have. The trash can semantics of “put back” are just crap. It crashes at least once a day for me. I could go on for days.

Windows 10 is notably better.

I've just assumed that Finder is fine for non-technical user so no one complains. But fair point. It can be fixed.

Simple things like easily copying paths (and no, not with a weird keyboard shortcut nobody uses - a simple GUI method, preferably with an address bar, which Finder also lacks), copy queuing (pause queued copies rather than shotgun them all at once), cutting files (FFS why is this feature outright missing? There is an awkward keyboard shortcut to move a copied file but it's frankly not the same), broken views (icon view sends most files offscreen, and even maximizing doesn't bring them back into the confines of the window), idiotic keyboard shortcuts (Cmd O opens a file, Enter renames it? No other OS does this). I could go on and on.

Finder is a rare case in macOS where Windows actually outclasses it in every way.

I really enjoy the various keyboard shortcuts [1]. I honestly wish more file managers had some of these features. I probably use "shift+command+g" the most. It's so nice being able to jump through Finder like changing directories in the terminal.

Honestly, for more complex tasks, I actually just use the terminal anyway.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102650

Finder is by far the worst file manager ever created.

Professionals came up with their own ways navigating through that complexity.

Most people prefer the first solution there were introduced to. So people preferring Windows Explorer were using it before Finder and vice versa.

People also don’t spend time learning their tools - that’s why you see a lot of complains in this thread for things that are right in the menu, you don’t even need to read help or ask google, just open the damn menu. And this is HN - a forum for “power” users who spend immense time using their computers.

It’s usually met with a lot of resistance from people who have carefully and painstakingly crafted their perfect file hierarchies and hate it when Apple messes with that.

Some of the content recognition stuff in this seem pretty interesting, but I’m not sure that “everything in a single folder with preview thumbnails turned on” would be less “frustrating” for me than the current finder paradigm. This seems like it’s aiming for the iOS photos interface but for all of your files. In general I find searching for one specific photo in that interface to be more frustrating than knowing a hierarchy it would have been saved under. But for finding recent photos and finding a cluster of temporally related photos it is better. Is that a paradigm that works for all files too? For recents probably, but I’m not sure I often look for temporally related files. Still, this is a neat looking program/project, and like I said the content recognition stuff does seem interesting.