Did you know that you can resize a Mac OS X Finder window when you’re in Column View to fit the widest folder or file name automatically? It’s a simple keyboard shortcut, and can save you a lot of scrolling and manual resizing.
Just hold down the Option key and double click the widget at the bottom of the column divider. I love working in Column View in Mac OS X’s Finder, and this shortcut makes it easier to get a view of full file names.
Ummm, wrong and wrong.
1. This is NOT a keyboard shortcut otherwise you wouldn’t have to double-click your mouse.
2. When you choose to resize all columns and then open a new finder window it does NOT keep that setting.
People are looking for automatic column resizing which simply does not exist.
Is there anyway to make this setting the default?
Thanks 🙂
It is the default for all new windows created.
Ok this is handy, but now my columns are all different sizes. How can you make each column a consistent width?
I usually have the finder window set wide enough to show 3 full columns, now that I’ve changed the width, one of the columns is always getting cut off.
With no document selected, hold the option key down while resizing columns to make them all the same width – then close the window immediately to save the state of new windows.
Glad to help!
Great tip! If I added up all the time spent manually stretching my columns over the years I’m sure I could have added a few days to my life.