Sadly, I appear to be caught up with your excellent blog, which I’m really enjoying, and learning a lot from. Can’t wait for the ‘file downloading demystification’, I’m still confused about the icons that appear on my desktop from loading software, etc…which I can throw away, which ones I have to move to Applications.

Scott, as you know, with Windows you can drag any border to resize a window. Is there ANY way (either internally, or with some add-on software) that will duplicate this feature on a Mac, rather than just by dragging the lower right corner? For me, this is absolutely the most frustrating shortcoming on my Mac, and I can’t believe the best computer in the world has this limitation.

@Matt, glad we can be of help to you. File downloading is indeed an important topic. I think no less than 5 chunks of “litter” can be left around when you download a file on OS X. It is always confusing as to which ones are safe to throw away, which ones you move to your applications folder, and which one you put in your dock etc. I hope to cover this tonight.

@Matt, I am not aware of any built in way to change window sizes other than with the bottom left resize area of a window.

It is not to say there are not third party tools to help you in this, but I am hesitant to share them as they can cause issues. I have no experience with the software listed below, so use at your own risk.

OCSmart Hacks

it is clearly a hack, it could very well be rock solid and reliable. If you do decide to use it, report your findings back here so other users may benefit.

Hi,
Great Site. I’ve been with MacOSX for some months now, but still I truely appreciate the way you make things look simple. Great tips about Safari (I had absolutely no idea about cmd+click in the title bar for hierarchical surfing !)

@Matt: For easy window resizing, it’s hard to beat Zooom, from CodeRage Software:

http://coderage-software.com/zooom/

All the best,
Greg

Can you drag in a nested folder? I have a folder in Documents that I access several times a week. It would show up in the fourth column in Finder. Would I be able to drag that folder to the sidebar without messing anything up?

@Donna, yes, you can drag in a nested folder, it will work fine, you will only have access to the top folder in the nest. If you want access to the fourth level folder, just drag that folder in.

Remember, you are not actually moving folders, just a representation of them, so feel free to test this out, there is nothing you will hurt by giving it a try.

hi, great site! ..unfortunately I still don’t know how to risize the icons(if possible) and font size in a sidebar in leopard…?

@Mat, changing fonts and icon size can not currently be done in OS X 10.5 and less. There is a chance a software update will give us what is called resolution independence. More than likely, it will be a system 10.6 feature.

The developers have been given the tools to start preparing for it:

Resolution Independence
The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology. Macs now ship with displays that sport native resolutions of 100dpi or better. Furthermore, the number of pixels per inch will continue to increase dramatically over the next few years. This will make displays crisper and smoother, but it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm. In Leopard, the system will be able to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. This will let the user interface maintain the same physical size while gaining resolution and crispness from high dpi displays.

The introduction of resolution independence may mean that there is work that you’ll need to do in order to make your application look as good as possible. For modern Cocoa applications, most of the work will center around raster-based resources. For older applications that use QuickDraw, more work will be required to replace QuickDraw-based calls with Quartz ones.

http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/

It will take some time, but it is in the works.

Hi Scott, thank you very much for your answer.
..and I do understand about the resolution and the icons…
but I was wandering if is possible at list to increase the font size in a sidebar as there is no problem to do so in mail and iphoto…?

@mat, as far as I know, the only way to change the size is to install the developer tools and play with the highly experimental resolution change app that Apple supplies. Or potentially there are more hidden hacks to preferences you can adjust, but I have not looked into it.

The part where you wrote:

“Close off or resize the sidebar
…Click, hold, and drag, and not only can you resize the width; but you can also shrink it to the far left. This will completely remove the sidebar from that particular window.”

Is not true for 10.5(.2). Apparently it used to work in 10.4, and remembered it, however in 10.5 it’s just forced on at all times unless you strip the entire window of all toolbars (which is next to useless as the next time you open the window, it has everything, including the sidebar, turned back on).

You have this information filed under 10.5, thus why I thought I would mention that it sadly no longer works!

I’ve been searching for a way to eliminate the sidebar in certain project windows permanently, like in 10.4, but have yet to find a way to do it.

@Randall, wow, you got me I had no idea they took the side bar removal feature away. Good catch, and thanks for pointing it out. Shame, it was a nice feature, as I rarely use the side bar. Lately, with spotlight and some other tools, I rarely use the Finder, so I guess that would be my excuse for not noticing this change.

Thanks again for pointing out my error.

Stumbled across your excellent site whilst searching for the answer to a particular sidebar issue that I am having.

I am a freelance Graphic Designer, been working on Macs for, well for what seems eternity now… and I’m loving OS X.

I have a couple of huge Seagate hard drives linked by Firewire, these contain my work files and accounts etc. I have a few top level folders in Places on the sidebar as I frequently access them throughout the day/week/month etc, and find this instant access invaluable.

I have just started working in-house for a printing company one day a week and to enable me to keep up-to-date with my main clients whilst I am working away, I take one of my Seagate drives into their studio with me, so I can access my files if need be.

Returning home and plugging the drive back in all of my folders that I dragged into Places are now gone (not that I am surprised I guess as the place that they are linked to was removed).

What I would like to know is… is there any way to keep these links alive in the sidebar even when the original device has been removed, so that when I plug the drive back in again they relink?

Its not particularly difficult to drag the folders in again, but like anyone I hate doing repetitive stuff and as time goes on my favourite folders are increasing in number.

Would appreciate your help

Andy

@Andy, this is just a guess, I do not have a simple means to test this. Make a folder somewhere, put aliases to the folders on your removable drive in the folder.

Now, add those aliases to the Places sidebar. Since they did not officially move when you remove the drive, I would bet they stay. They of course will not work, but they should stay.

Thanks Scott… I’ll give it a try and report back later!

Sorry for the delay in responding… but thanks Scott, thats fixed it! Much appreciated

Regards

Andy

I agree wholeheartedly with Randall!

I am so disappointed that 10.5.3 has no way to remove the sidebar still leaving the great other function buttons.

And why doesn’t it stay in “lozenge” mode when you re-OPEN it???

It’s probably not a reasonable request, since Leopard is virtually impossible to hack into with Haxies (however, Windowshade does work..Yay!!!) but, has anyone found a haxie that might work for removing the sidebar and leaving the function buttons?

bounty for sidebar killer!

->>Steve, give us back our real-estate!

Anyone learning/finding a method to reduce the finder’s sidebar min width (10.5.2) please post!!!

Feature removal is really not appreciated.

Many thanks to the writers, maintainers, and posters of this column — keep up the excellent work!

@robn8r, I am not aware of any way, even with a hack. If we find anything out, we will be sure to post it.

I agree with robn8r about the “real estate” issue. it’s very annoying that Mr. Jobs decided that if we want all the nice features and buttons at the top of the regular OS X window, then we have to have a full 1.5 inch removed from our real estate. Very selfish, Steve. Give us a friggin’ option!

I’ll add to that bounty to kill the new 10.5.3 sidebar!!!

And special thanx to Scott for being so diligent!

~leesa

I have a question I was hoping you could help me with. I just received a Mac at work, in a mostly PC environment. The IT guys here have not been able to figure out how to change the names of the servers I access on the sidebar, so they are currently listed as IP addresses and take a while to connect when I click on them. I access the same names of folders (ie. “marketing” “graphics”) etc on three different servers, and everything is very nested within other folders. I would love to be able to link each of these folders on my sidebar, but they replace each other since they have the same name and I can’t rename them without renaming the folder. So far the only shortcutting I can do is to make aliases of everything on my desktop.

Any ideas???
- Trista

@Trista, the names of a remote server in the sidebar, if it is not a Macintosh, will be determined by DNS.

If it is a Mac, it uses it’s computer name set in sharing. In your case, it is showing an IP. If it has a DNS name.

This is not something you can change, and may not be something your IT dept can change. You may have to work with who supplies those IP’s if they are not local non routable IP’s.

I have a bunch of items in my Sidebar that I cannot get rid of – they were on the desktop and accidentally added to the sidebar. After trashing the items in the desktop (and emptying the trash), I am still stuck with the items in the sidebar. Every time I click on them to try to get rid of them, I get a pop-up that says “The volume for ‘[sidebar item name]‘ cannot be found”. Do you know how to get rid of these?
FYI – I upgraded my Tiger OS to Leopard a while ago. I had once found a filepath to edit the sidebar configuration file when I had Tiger, but I cannot find it with Leopard.
Thanks in advance for any insight you may have.
- Nirav

@Nirav, have you tried to drag them out and release them? They should “poof” away like in the video we put up in this post.

I have some folders on a network disc, and have Alias’s on my desktop for these folders, I have also put them into my sidebar, works fine,

>>> BUT I have also done the same with network discs, I have an alias and put in my sidebar but when I restart it disapears.

I’ve done this as I have so many different network discs and also individual folders, it’s quicker to navigate with just Alias’s and the option to show “Connected Servers” on the desktop disabled. It did work for a while, but now it doesn’t.

Tiger allowed me to maintain a specific server directory in the sidebar — even after restarting the Mac it would appear. Now, with Leopard, if I want that server directory to show, I have to put it there EVERY time I start the Mac. Having only the top level of a server appear under “SHARED” it not useful. Who on earth uses the top level of a server? Isn’t there a way to make that directory ALWAYS appear like it did with Tiger?

Question for everyone. I accidently removed my USB removable disk by draging it away from the Finder sidebar. My problem that I have right now is every time I want to open my USB key I of course plug it in and then normally after a couple of seconds it should normally appear in the Finder sidebar as an external image disk. My problem is it’s that it doesn’t appear anymore and I would like to reverse that. The only way I can go in it and access my data is by pressing Command+O (to open). Any suggestion!!!? Thanks a lot.

@Alex, does the USB drive show up on your desktop, if so, just drag that back into the sidebar. You can also look in your Finder Preferences, in the sidebar preferences, and make sure that “External Discs” is checked.

It’s working now…didn’t have to do anything which is weird, I must have a finger problem. Anyway thanks and good job with the website folks. Mac rules!

My Finder windows no longer has a sidebar at all when I set it to open on “Documents.” In fact, they look like ordinary windows, without the view button set in the frame. I prefer column mode, but I’m missing my sidebar in any format unless I set the Finder preferences to open in my home directory, which isn’t the way I want it, or had it up until today.

What I get instead (in column mode) is a first column with the drives on my system with the main one selected, then a column where Users is selected (and not the the other items in the selected drive), then one where my home directory is selected, the next one has Documents selected, and finally, the contents. In icon mode it shows the documents directory, but still no sidebar. I wish I could send you a screen shot. What is going on, and how can I get my sidebar back and keep it back?

@Chrysan, there is a small “chicklet” in the upper right of the Finder windows, click that, and it should toggle it from basic display, to one with a sidebar and top bar.

>>Click, hold, and drag, and not only can you resize the width; but you can also shrink it to the far left. This will completely remove the sidebar from that particular window.

This does not work under 10.5 anymore, right? (
Any ideas how to get rid of the sidebar if you are not a fan of it?

Ronald

@Vogel, correct, that does not work under 10.5, and we did not catch the error in the post. We need to update that, sorry. I believe there are comments in this post that do discuss it.

We will update the post, but I am not aware of a away to remove the sidebar, aside from clicking the “chicklet” in the upper right of a window. However, that removes all window functions, including the header search bar and such.

How are you completely removing the finder’s sidebar? I drag it to the left (as you described) but it does not completely disappear. It stops about an inch from the edge.

Mac OS X 10.5.5

Never mind, I see the answer in the comments.

any answers for Chris and Gary above, I have the same network problem.

Comment by chris 08.21.08 @ 3:37
Comment by Gary 08.24.08 @ 9:22 am

@chris @gary @diana I am not sure I see the problem. I Just mounted a remote share volume on my desktop, I poked into it, dragged a folder from it to my sidebar, and was able to use the sidebar to access the remote volume.

I then unmonted the remote volume, clicked on the folder I made in the sidebar, and it mounted up the volume, taking me right to the contents of the remote share.

This also survived a reboot as well.

Can you explain in more detail just what it is that is not working for you, and what it is that the specific problem is?

I think maybe you are losing the icon in your sidebar, when the remote share goes away. If that is the case, I can not replicate it. I could suggest you mount the remote share, go into your accounts area of system preferences, and add the remote share as a login item. This will mount the remote share every time you login. With it mounted, it will always be there, and your sidebar links should always work.

You could also try using the actual folder to drag into your sidebar, and not an alias of a folder, perhaps that is the issue.

I can do that with sub-folders.
The folder I am looking at has three stickman icon on it and the kind is ’sharpoint’ On the server, it is a standard folder. This folder (and a few others) in OS X 10.4, was on the sidebar as a shortcut.

@diana, looks to me as though this is just how it is in 10.5. I can not get any share point to go into the sidebar. I would just drop some sub item of the share in there.

I don’t have any sidebar at all…any idea? I updated the software today (10.5.7 leopard) and now finder has no sidebar. Any suggestions?

@Erick, please see commend http://osxhelp.com/customizing-the-finder-sidebar-in-os-x/#comment-6270 above

Hi, Am having a funny issue with creating an alias to the Downloads folder in my home directory. If I try to drag the alias to the list of items in “Places” it changes it back to Downloads in the list of places and ignores the alias name I had given it.

The reason I wanted to do this was to create several similar names in the list of Places for the Downloads folders of several different computers.

What is so special about the name “Downloads” and why do aliases to it get treated so weirdly?

Thanks…

-Bob

@Bob, this is a bit of a long story. Aliases are special in that no matter where you move them, they still connect back to the original. In a very simplistic explanation, the name you give an alias is purely cosmetic and only for your identification purposes.

An even worse explanation, but to illustrate a point… Say a file/folder sits on disc at position 48, and an alias points to the file/folder at position 48. If you rename the alias, it will still point to the file at position 48.

Assume position 48 is your Downloads folder. When you put the alias in your sidebar, it is resolved back to position 48, which then uncovers the real file/folder name.

At that point, the sidebar choses to use the destination file/folder name, and not that of the alias.

There may be a few ways to work around this that are a tad complicated and would need jumping into the terminal.

To answer your question, it is not the Downloads folder specifically, it is that the sidebar will resolve any alias back to the source, and use that name.

From what I understand, while confusing, this is expected behavior.

I see what you mean – I tried another folder and created an alias to it and tried dragging it into the sidebar and the same thing happens. So there is nothing special about the Documents folder (although it does get it’s own special icon when in the sidebar). I tried a “symbolic link” and it does the same obnoxious thing, ie the name in the list of places is the name of the thing pointed to by the symbolic link, not the symbolic link name.

What are the ways to work around this – I don’t have a problem using the Terminal. If it’s too complicated to explain, can you point me to a URL that discusses the issue?

Thanks very much for your help!

New users, please do not read this comment… Advanced suggestions below…

@Bob, yes, ln -s (symbolic link) is going to do the same, in OS X territory, they are nearly identical to a alias, sans a resource fork or two I suppose.

Look into hard links, read up on them closely, as they are an entirely new ball of wax, one that is treated different on OS X, allowing hard links to point to directories, which is not allowed on most OS’s. This is done for the core concept of how Time Machine works to allow you semi rotational backups.

Time Machine fails a little as 1 byte in a 100MB file still means moving 100MB – 1byte of data, but the theory is still the same.

A hard link should be seen as a totally independent file, solving your trouble, but be careful, learn what the columns in `ls` mean, so you know how many links there are to a source file.

This is well beyond the scope of this site Just do your research, and you should be fine.

Thanks very much for your help. I found a site that has a tiny 10 line C program that does create links for folders and tried it out and it works fine. The same site listed all the limitations/restrictions of when you can and cannot or should not create these links to folders/directories. If people are curious about this check out the site by Amit Singh (author of “Mac OS X Internals” at http://www.osxbook.com/blog/2008/11/09/hfsdebug-40-and-new-hfs-features/ – the pertinent discussion is in the section titled “Directory Hard Links”

Thanks again for all your help.