OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Adjusting Finder Preferences

Most of the Finder preferences reside in the Finder Preferences dialog box, which you access by choosing Finder⇒Preferences or by pressing +, (comma). This dialog box has four panes, as Figure 3.6 shows.

Figure 3.6

The Finder Preferences dialog box and its four panes: General, Labels, Sidebar, and Advanced

The General pane provides several controls:

• Show These Items on the Desktop: Select and deselect the options in this area to control what always displays on the desktop when available: Hard Disks; External Disks (which includes USB thumb drives, floppy disks, and memory cards); CDs, DVDs, and iPods; and Connected Servers. (Note that iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads won't appear as disk icons. Only non-Touch iPods set to disk mode are available as disks.)

• New Finder Windows Open: Use this pop-up menu to choose which folder should open when you open a new Finder Window. (Choose File⇒Open New Finder Window or press +N when in the Finder to open a new Finder window.) By default, this option is set to the All My Files smart folder.

• Always Open Folders in a New Window: Select this option to have folders open in a new window rather than in place of the ...