Some of the Finder’s most-useful menus are right underneath your pointer. To reveal them, just Control-click (or right-click) on a document, folder or window!
The options in these contextual menus adapt to what you’re clicking. Check out these tips for using them – and apps that supercharge their powers.
Compress files
To create a ZIP-compressed archive of a file, folder or group of files, Control-click it, then choose Compress.
Open a file in a different app
Double-clicking a file will open it using a default app, such as Preview for JPEG files or TextEdit for text files. To select a different app, Control-click the file and hover over Open With to see every app on your Mac that can handle the file.
Scan, sketch or snap with your iPhone or iPad
Use your iPhone or iPad to take a photo, scan a document, or draw a sketch – then import that directly to your Mac. Control-click in a folder or on the desktop, and in the Import from iPhone (or iPad) submenu, choose Take Photo, Scan Documents or Add Sketch.
Quickly access menu options
Control-click in any Finder window for faster access to many of the Finder’s menu commands: switch among icon, list, column and gallery views; change sort options; add tags; and duplicate, rename and share files.
Extend your menus
Third-party apps add even more commands to the Finder’s contextual menus.
New File Menu quickly creates a new document for a specific app. Instead of launching an app, creating a new document, saving it and navigating to a folder, just Control-click in the desired folder and choose New [Application Name] File.
Context Menu adds AppleScripts and shell scripts to contextual menus – it’s the easiest way to run scripts on any file.
Service Station does it all: customise your Open With options, run scripts, open Terminal to the current folder or create rules to show different menus for different types of items.