{"id":69052,"date":"2017-09-06T10:24:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T17:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/?p=69052"},"modified":"2017-09-06T10:24:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T17:24:11","slug":"master-the-macos-open-and-save-dialogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/master-the-macos-open-and-save-dialogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Master the macOS Open and Save Dialogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Master<\/p>\n

You create and save new documents all day long when you work on your Mac. And you open existing documents, update them, and sometimes save them in different locations. Many people routinely\u00a0save everything on their desktop, creating a digital pile of documents that\u2019s hard to sift;\u00a0or, they save documents without checking where the app is putting them, only to discover they\u00a0can\u2019t find them later.<\/p>\n

The macOS Open and Save dialogs are powerful tools that let you find and work on files, and save files efficiently in various locations. In this article, I\u2019m going to show you some of the ways you can master these dialogs.<\/p>\n

The Open Dialog<\/h3>\n

The Open dialog is fairly simple, and it allows you to browse your Mac\u2019s file system to find almost anything. You can do this by selecting a folder, then opening its sub-folders, and browsing until you find the file you\u2019re looking for. Here, I\u2019m looking inside a folder on my Desktop; you can see that the Desktop is selected in the Finder toolbar:<\/p>\n

\"Open<\/p>\n

In the above example, I\u2019m looking at my files in List view; you see their names, the dates they were modified, their size, and their kind. But you can also use two other views: Icon view and Column view. You can switch views by clicking one of the three parts of the View button near the left of the toolbar.\u00a0In the above screenshot, you can see that the List view button is selected. Here\u2019s Icon view:<\/p>\n

\"Icon<\/p>\n

With this view, you can see previews of some of your documents.\u00a0If you want to take a closer look at any of them, select one and press the space bar to view it using Quick Look. (You can use Quick Look in any view.) This way you can browse through a number of documents with\u00a0names and icon previews that may look similar, and choose the one you want. This is a lot easier than opening each one\u00a0only to discover\u00a0they\u2019re not what you were looking for, then closing them and trying again.<\/p>\n

You can also use Column view, as shown below:<\/p>\n

\"Column<\/p>\n

The Column view is\u00a0a great way to browse documents when you have a lot of sub-folders. Column view is particularly useful because of the large preview that displays in the rightmost column, as you can see above.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good idea to put folders you use often in the Finder sidebar, but you can also use a number of keyboard shortcuts<\/a> to quickly find\u00a0certain folders. They\u2019re the same ones that you can use in the Finder, and you can see them in the Finder\u2019s Go menu:<\/p>\n

\"Finder<\/p>\n

For example, if you store a lot of files on your Desktop, press Command-Shift-D to view that folder (it really is a folder, at least to the Mac), or press Command-Shift-O to go to your Documents folder. And Command-Shift-L takes you to your Downloads folder.<\/p>\n

The Save Dialog<\/h3>\n

The Save dialog looks a lot like the Open dialog, and for a good reason: they are both ways of accessing your Mac\u2019s file system. Yet\u00a0sometimes the Save dialog\u00a0looks different than the Open dialog. You may find that the Save dialog displays in a contracted form in some of your apps:<\/p>\n

\"Save<\/p>\n

If so, click the small arrow button to the right of the Save As field. The dialog expands to look almost exactly like the Open dialog:<\/p>\n

\"Save<\/p>\n

As with the Open dialog, you can change views (Icon, List, or Column view) to browse your Mac\u2019s file system and choose where to save your file. You can also click New Folder, to create a new folder in any location; you then give that folder a name, and you can save your file within it. (Press Command-Shift-N to create a new folder more quickly.)<\/p>\n

Depending on the app, you may see a menu asking you to choose a format for the file. In the screenshot above, I\u2019ve created a file in TextEdit, so I have options to save it in a number of file formats. You can also choose to show or hide the file\u2019s extension, if you wish, by checking or unchecking a box at the bottom of the window. Some apps will offer more options depending on the type of files they save.<\/p>\n

Quickly Navigating the Open and Save Dialogs<\/h3>\n

I briefly explained above how you can navigate the Open dialog, and you can do the same with the Save dialog. However,\u00a0there are quicker ways to navigate these dialogs. By pressing the Command key, together with arrow keys, you can move around your Mac\u2019s file system\u00a0and find\u00a0the files you want to open and the folders you want to use to store your files. Here are a few keyboard shortcuts to help you quickly navigate the Open and Save dialogs:<\/p>\n