Windows was bad but at least Explorer (windows 10 version anyway) let you easily SEE the file system
I’m sure as hell not buying a subscription project to fix that though lololol
Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one (kepter.app)
135 pointsby maltch3 days ago206 comments
muppetman 3 days ago
As a Windows user for years until 2 years ago, I can’t believe how unusable finder is. It’s just terrible. I feel like it actively hides the filesystem from you at every turn.
dkackman11 3 days ago
this
haaz 3 days ago
Yes one of the first things I did when moving to mac was pinning Macintosh HDD root folder to Finder, but that kept going away every time I restarted my Max so I bought Bloom which is way better
Atariman 2 days ago
Yes, Bloom is really great and easily worth the price!
maltch 3 days ago
Explorer is a much better tool than Finder. Couldn't agree more.
peanball 3 days ago
And yet copying multiple large files from or to the same disk grinds the throughput to a halt on Windows where Finder keeps up close to theoretical bandwidth in sum.
userbinator 3 days ago
That's not a UI issue.
api 2 days ago
Windows file I/O has always felt slower than Linux, Mac, anything. Still does. I don’t know what’s wrong with it or why it’s unfixable.
SSDs make it tolerable… not by fixing it but by being fast enough to hide it. Back in the spinning disc days you could tell a windows machine by how much kerchunking the drive was doing.
NinjaTrance 2 days ago
Mac (the hardware) is amazing.
MacOS (the OS) is much better than Windows.
But MacOS (the user interface) is worse than Windows (or even Linux).
api 2 days ago
I find Explorer slow and frustrating, while Finder works but is basic and cumbersome and useless for anything more than basic opening or moving.
I remember outstanding file managers way back in the MS-DOS days. Sidekick, QuickDOS, and Norton Commander were great.
My take is that expert users use the terminal while regular users don’t like to do much with files. So there’s no push for a powerful graphical file manager.
deadbeef7f 2 days ago
If you are a windows user, you may want to check out File Pilot https://filepilot.tech/
raffraffraff 3 days ago
I'll take any file browser over finder. In fact, I hate the whole MacOS UI but I can mostly ignore the problems with Karabiner, Hammerspoon and Rectangle.
NinjaTrance 2 days ago
I hate MacOS UI.
Red/yellow/green buttons to close(?)/minimize(?)/maximize(?) windows are usability hell.
jakevoytko 3 days ago
This was my instant reaction when I started using a Mac. But 15 years later, even knowing more tricks for interacting with it, it still baffles me. Once you've used Windows Explorer and a few Linux distro navigators, there's no denying that Finder is unquestionably worst in class.
doubled112 3 days ago
Dolphin in KDE has to be one of my favourite GUI file managers ever.
Simple to use until you need it to be complicated, then it probably does what you’re looking for.
sho_hn 2 days ago
Our KDE development motto (and a contrast explained in our HIG) is "Simple by default, powerful when needed". It's nice to see someone re-state it so naturally and eloquently in the wild!
brnt 2 days ago
I can't thank KDE devs enough, so thanks :)
Not just Dolphin is among the best in class.
sho_hn 13 hours ago
Thank you!
ktpsns a day ago
Thank you so much for Dolphin!
I have been a hardcore Konqueror user back in the days. Early dolphin felt like a back step. Nowadays, thought, it easily outshines Konqueror. I still miss a few KIOs which were showcased in Konqueror. I guess they were discontinued.
sho_hn 13 hours ago
Which ones are you missing? Perhaps I can solve the mystery :-)
klodolph 2 days ago
As a Mac user since the 1980s, I feel feel like Finder is easily best in class, even after ten or fifteen years of design. I would describe Windows Explorer as “embarrassingly bad” in comparison, despite having a good hold on the shortcuts.
I honestly think it is a matter of what you like rather than what is good or bad.
NinjaTrance 2 days ago
> As a Mac user since the 1980s, I feel feel like Finder is easily best in class
Once internal muscle memory is established, the usability problems can be easily dismissed; but for the rest of us, who got used to better file managers, Finder is atrocious.
As a Windows user in the 90s, Linux user in the 2000s, and Mac user since the 2010s, I dread the moments when I have to use Finder.
klodolph 2 days ago
What do you like about the other file managers over the Finder?
Finder has column view and quicklook. If there’s something that I’m missing out on from, say, Explorer or Thunar or whatever, I’d love to hear it. Whenever I have to sort through a lot of files on Linux or Windows, I get a better experience by exporting a SMB share and sorting on a Mac.
The only file managers that I’ve used that felt competitive with the Mac are tools like Midnight Commander (or the original Norton version).
eviks 7 hours ago
Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters!
But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor.
And NM you jump faster by 5 files.
And the ability to change shortcuts easily
And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path.
And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for easier search
And instant search (with the help of Everything) limited to the current dir+children, shown in the same file manager list with the same navigation option
And the ability to tap Cmd-R multiple files to select rename file full name/name/extension
And the ability to autoreplace illegal filesystem file chars with my own alternative to preserve those Divide/Rule common document names
And the ability to automatically control how much space a column is wasting.
Etc., a million of other things that differentiate a real pro file manager from the toy of Finder
everyone 3 days ago
Imo tech companies want people to be as tech-illiterate as possible. Tech illiterate people will not realise how the tech company did extra work to make their product less capable and less empowering to the user in favour of being more beneficial and empowering to the tech company itself.
Obfuscating the file system has been a popular move in this regard. A file system is so elegant and empowering and useful for so many tasks, of course they want to hide it.
userbinator 3 days ago
A file system, especially a local one, invites interoperability and control over one's data. Hiding this from users makes it more difficult for them to have that control, and now they have to rely on the application vendor to do in a proprietary way, what would otherwise be a simple file operation.
kdidjsidjejd 2 days ago
You greybeard wannabes all have a serious problem: you think tech is made for you and for you alone.
Once computers became accessible beyond the hobbyist, enthusiast or professional it became a necessity to guarantee that those people that click on anything they are told to click cannot break their computers simply working the file explorar app.
It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
You can still do whatever you want with your file system. Except that if you want to break into it and mess with it, you have to actually know what you are doing.
bigstrat2003 a day ago
People who were not hobbyists learned to use computers, in large numbers, so I don't think your conclusion is accurate. Anyone can learn this stuff with a bare minimum of effort.
mitxela 9 hours ago
Computers don't have to have file systems. The history of personal computing has had more time with file systems being hidden, than with them being visible, and if you weight by the number of users, over 90%.
hirvi74 3 days ago
What do you mean by "see the file system?" It's not exactly hard to enable in Finder. In Finder's settings, one can have the root directory, home directory, etc. enabled in the sidebar. Not to mention, one can easily drag & drop common folders into the sidebar too.
Those settings with the hierarchy view makes seeing the file system quite clear in my opinion.
muppetman 3 days ago
So I’m in Microsoft Word. I hit the open file button and get the finder chooser window thing. I want to go up one level.
How??
I’m sure there’s some magical key combination to do it but I can never remember it.
That’s the first thing I can think off atop my head.
I’ve never played in Finder settings. Do I have to do that to get something useable? I didn’t even know it had settings it doesn’t seem like the sort of app that should.
classichasclass 3 days ago
Click on the drop down at the top of the Open window (where the name of the current folder is displayed) and you get the whole path to choose from.
muppetman 3 days ago
Thank you!!
alsetmusic 3 days ago
This suggests that you were genuine in not knowing. But had you never done a quick web search? It's the kind of thing that I'd feel compelled to find whether I could change the behavior to fit what I would prefer.
Anyway, if you're unaware, here are a couple useful shortcuts for kbd-driven navigation: Command-Down (arrow) to dig one level down the file tree and Command-Up (arrow) to move to the enclosing directory / folder. I use it many times a day all day long.
hn8726 3 days ago
I also didn't know how to do that, and I'm certain that I've looked it up at some point. It's just so unintuitive that I'd need to do it daily to remember
muppetman 3 days ago
The problem I've been having is that in Word "Recents" is selected by default.
So I pull down that menu and it's useless (full of random Recent folders)
The comment above made me realise if I pick "Documents" in the left hand side, that top menu changes from having a bunch of useless "Recents" in it and exposes the filesystem.
No I've never thought to Google how to use the Finder - it seems like that one thing that should be super intutitve - I've never had to Google how to use any other filesystem manager, Windows or Linux. Or iOS. Or Android.
anon7000 2 days ago
But this is like the same as windows explorer right? It opens whatever view you used for the app (say, “recents”) and then you click something in the sidebar to go to the “real” filesystem?
hotdog1492 2 days ago
“Recents” is not Finder. That’s actually Microsoft’s useleas UI. It would be far more usable if they did just open the real system file picker. (Msft messed this up on Windows too.)
muppetman 10 hours ago
Yea so it seems my frustrations come from not understanding the file picker isn't the finder. Anyway I've learnt a few things, so thanks everyone. I feel less powerless now.
monkey_monkey 3 days ago
You right click on the folder name at the top of the window, this gives you the tree path from 'root'
blokey 3 days ago
Command + Uparrow.
In the Finder, look at the 'Go' menu, all those keyboard shortcuts works everywhere the file open/save window is displayed.
Like Command+Shift+D for Desktop, Command+Shift+O for Documents.
scubbo 3 days ago
Not the person you're replying to, but I assume they're referring to the ability to see something like:
``` src ├── app │ └── page.tsx └── components └── header.tsx ```
EDIT: Lol. I'm not even going to edit it. Hacker News, you also suck.
hirvi74 3 days ago
I can see that easily in Finder. List View or Column View displays files like that.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mchldaafb302/...
maleldil 2 days ago
You have to indent the text by two or more spaces to count as code. Hacker News doesn't use Markdown, so backticks don't work.
FWIW, this is clear in the "help" link by the textarea.
zug_zug 3 days ago
I agree 100%. Been using macs for 15 years now, but the windows XP explorer in particular was fundamentally objectively better than finder, and it's nuts they haven't figured it out.
One of the things I find most baffling is that in order to "go to a folder by path" (e.g. ~) you have to hit command-shift-G ? What kind of hidden witchcraft is this?
It feels like it was designed for people who cannot understand a directory structure. But even that is done poorly, because it's not particularly useful. That said, this kepter thing looks pretty bad too.
monkey_monkey 3 days ago
or you click on "Go" in the menu bar.
What key combo did you want that would be less 'magical'?
etrautmann 3 days ago
A path bar anywhere in the interface?
I also want this to be able to copy a file’s path. Right now I’m not even sure how to do that aside from cmd-i to get info and then clunkily drag select the parent dir to copy. Repeat for the file name. Am I insane or is there a better way? Just use terminal? For a time I used pathfinder which had a feature to copy the full path but I ended up hating the subscription and constant feature churn.
CharlesW 3 days ago
It's not unusual for Mac users to create custom shortcuts for things like this using built-in and 3rd-party tools like Shortcuts, Automator/AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon, etc.
For copying the path of a file specifically, in Finder you can hold Option and then pick Edit → Copy as Pathname.
Wevah 3 days ago
Context menu → hold Option; “Copy” will change to “Copy <file> as Path”. (Sometimes you can just drag and drop the file to where you want to paste, but that depends on the destination app and so isn’t consistent.)
x2tyfi 2 days ago
Another option, if you already have terminal open, is to drag the file/folder from Finder into your terminal window. The path will be pasted there.
snsisnwjxnwjd 2 days ago
Yep. Many different options available. Seems to me most complaining about finder haven’t actually bothered to give it the benefit of the learning-curve they’ve given to other file managers. Explorer is so far behind Finder it’s ridiculous, yet people somehow think it is better? C’mon.
zug_zug a day ago
What are you talking about? Like I've said I've been using finder for 15 years and most of these things people are talking have absolutely no discoverability.
Like is the mac UI really supposed to be "Get frustrated, google it, and read how to do these things and special keyboard shortcuts/drag-and-drop/etc"?
To be clear I think macs are by far the superior product on the hardware front, but nobody should be discovering new UI tricks after 3 years, let alone a decade.
SoftTalker 2 days ago
Just use the terminal. I've never found that a GUI was any good at managing files and directories. A shell and utility commands are far better.
MokaAkashiya 2 days ago
Surprisingly nobody suggested yet to just select file in Finder and press Option-Cmd-C to copy file path.
eszed a day ago
Whoa! Twenty-year+ Mac user, and I never knew that trick. Thank you for that.
thrwkmmshf00083 2 days ago
Why not just enable the path / breadcrumb bar that shows at the bottom of the window and lets you copy a path or open a terminal via the context menu? I currently don't have a Mac in reach but I'm pretty sure the option for that is in the "view" menu.
Not a fan of Apples approach of making many functions invisible but I never understood all the complaints about Finder. I use Arch, MacOS and Windows (if I have to) and apart from having to reconfigure it slightly, I never had any particular issues with Finder. You also have to give Apple credit for their long-form manuals - which exist for most things they offer. It's pretty easy to see in threads like this one that many people apparently do not read them, though.
eviks 7 hours ago
A single letter G
A single modifier Cmd-G
Clicking is bad/slow
alsetmusic 3 days ago
This may be of use:
> defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
Change to `false` to reverse it. You have to `killall Finder` or force quit it for each to take effect.
Also, Shift-Command-. (dot) in Finder. You can find a lot of useful settings that can be adjusted to your preferred mode digging through this repo (not affiliated): https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles
g8425 a day ago
Damn that is a useful repo... Thank you for sharing!
pan69 3 days ago
When I started using a Mac many years ago, I also could not believe how terrible Finder is. This is software from the "design" company.
One of the biggest pitfalls I ran into at the time (and remember from the top of my head) was that when you copy a folder, and a folder with the same name already exists at the destination, it will quietly replace it, rather than giving me a dialog asking if I want to Replace or Merge.
Oh, that I can't switch on/off show hidden files, I have to run some command line command to do that...
userbinator 3 days ago
They certainly design --- to look good at first glance, but not necessarily be practical.
spdustin 3 days ago
⇧˖⌘˖. (Shift-Command-Period) will show/hide hidden files in Finder
timmytokyo 3 days ago
A shortcut that isn't visible in any of Finder's menus. Which makes it virtually undiscoverable.
Finder is full of these kinds of hidden secrets.
Wevah 3 days ago
You can press Command-Shift-. (period) to toggle hidden files. This isn’t very discoverable, though.
You can also hold Option while stopping a folder to get an additional Merge button, but at least one folder needs to have unique items.
rswail 2 days ago
Considering there's a Unix underneath, the logical of showing "dotfiles" that are usually hidden is possibly the connection.
But MacOS keyboard shortcuts have always been undiscoverable unless they were part of the menu, which is a problem.
thrwkmmshf00083 2 days ago
Of course MacOS asks you what you want to do when you copy over a folder and has done so forever. The keyboard shortcut to show hidden files has been mentioned already (it's even a logical one for once in Apple-Land) and the terminal command is straightforward and logical as well. Should they include a perma-toggle in the UI as well? I, personally, think yes but I also think it's pretty consistent with a certain approach to UI design to not include said button.
tonyedgecombe 2 days ago
That has changed. I'm not sure when but it definitely asks me if I want to replace or merge.
tonyedgecombe a day ago
Just checked and this behaviour came with Lion in 2011.
eviks 7 hours ago
But not changed enough, I can't merge everything from the top, I can only do that whenever the first Mergeable conflict appears, but there could be a bunch more of conflicts with Replace option only
pupppet 3 days ago
To Apple, files are an unsightly thing they need to sweep under the carpet, if you have to interact with files they probably believe they’ve done something wrong.
Look at Apple Mail, they used to bury attachments behind a button and even now they just drop them at the end of the email.
pessimizer 2 days ago
Ignorance of how computers work is a moat. One that Apple influenced the entire industry to adopt.
Same reason the Church didn't want to translate the Bible into the vernacular. If you can read the Bible you don't need a priest, or at the least you can evaluate your priest knowledgeably and decide to go to a different one.
brnt 2 days ago
Then why did Apple keep the hierarchical file system when moving away from HFS? Could've gone with a kv-store kind of system.
mrheosuper 2 days ago
> if you have to interact with files they probably believe they’ve done something wrong.
So it's wrong to be power user using mac.
8note 2 days ago
shouldnt a mac power user be the best at never touching a file?
tiahura 2 days ago
The entire MacOS UI has a 1990's OpenWindows feel. Yes, spacebar is neat, but the rest is dreadful.
Suppafly 2 days ago
As a dos/windows/linux users my whole life, I got asked by some family a few years back to get photos off of a mac from a deceased family member. I pulled off everything I could find, but I was never sure I actually found everything because I basically had to just search for different image types, but had no real way to browse to actual folders where things were stored.
thrwkmmshf00083 2 days ago
It's a Unix system under the fancy UI. Of course there are folders and of course you can go to them. You can also grep in the terminal or whatever you are used to do from Linux to your heart's content.
Personally, I think the representation of the directory tree in Linux and MacOS is equally jarring for a person who has grown up with DOS and Windows. It certainly was for me when I peeked my head out of Bill-Gates-Land as a teenager.
beAbU 2 days ago
MacOS spawned a whole cottage industry of paid software that make up for it's deficiencies.
SebastianKra a day ago
Explorer has
- no columns view
- no quick look
- freezes for 5 seconds when you accidentally drag over a disconnected network location
- when opening a files, doesn't let you drag in an file to select it.
- no shortcut for toggling hidden files
- no tabs until Win 11
- no tags
- no sorting by "date added"
This was mostly a check for myself to see if I had Stockholm syndrome. But I keep finding more reasons to prefer Finder.
Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 3 days ago
Finder is frustrating but this guy is just complaining about the fact that he's unable to organize his own files into directories in a way that lets him find them later. He then calls himself a power user. Finder even has tags to help with this, which is more than most operating systems get
maltch 3 days ago
So true, so true. Every time I think I've got my structure set up properly, I then do something in haste, and can't find it later. Power user and file manager are two totally different things.
rbanffy 3 days ago
Not all data fits neatly into a hierarchy of boxes.
But, if the person doesn’t know where the file is, Finder has a “Recent” virtual folder right a the top that’ll list all files the person worked on most recent on the top. I often use it to get to screenshots. There’s also a lot of basic operations that are there since the 1990s any power user would know.
greekrich92 3 days ago
Finder is terrible. Not sure why it's worth defending to the point of attacking someone who simpy made something which fills its gaps.
GiorgioG 3 days ago
He’s complaining…because he sells a solution to this problem. I hated Finder when I switched to Mac back in 2007. So much so I bought PathFinder. One thing that pissed me off and still does, is when I copy over a folder with the same name, it doesn’t merge the contents, it deletes everything in the existing folder. That’s not what I expected as a Windows user and it still seems like the wrong behavior almost 20 years later. I no longer use PathFinder, it had its own problems and bugs…but in general I find Finder pretty lacking.
zitterbewegung 3 days ago
If you do option while moving the file it merges both directories but even I didn't know this until I googled it.
Someone 3 days ago
If you copy-paste a folder using the keyboard, a dialog pops up asking you whether to merge the contents. Totally inconsistent with drag-and—drop, but useful to know.
ShinyLeftPad 2 days ago
This is not true, it asks to merge or replace (though merge is not always available). It's like that for years already.
gkoberger 3 days ago
I understand your point, but "Finder" does make it harder to organize things. When you save, they hide away folder browser by default, make it really difficult to navigate to different folders, and push for a "just hit save and search for it later!" mentality.
I agree you can overcome this, but you find yourself fighting against macOS a bit to do it.
(Also, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this isn't a blog post... it's an ad. So of course the issues are exaggerated a bit. The ironic part is I don't think the app actually solves the problems mentioned.)
re 3 days ago
I don't know where you get "really difficult" and "fighting against macOS" from. You only have to hit the disclosure arrow next to "Where" in the save dialog one time and it remembers it and shows it by default from then on. (Okay, maybe it's once per app? I don't remember for sure, but I can't remember the last time the save panel didn't show me the folder browser by default.)
gkoberger 3 days ago
If you read the article, it talks from the perspective of "I help lots of friends and family with IT stuff". For most users, they wouldn't know how to get to the larger menu or that Cmd+Shft+G lets them type in a path.
ShinyLeftPad 2 days ago
It's once forever, not once per app.
imadtaieber 3 days ago
Finder sucks, information storing and retrieval should be frictionless
nothingnm 3 days ago
Pronouncing your name is like a drunk French guy saying "I'm outta beer"
userbinator 3 days ago
Thinly veiled marketing post.
I've had to use Finder, and it's definitely frustrating in a "Think Different" sort of way, but this article doesn't actually mention why beyond vague statements.
Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode.
maltch 3 days ago
It's my app, no veil intended. It pulls all the drives, folders into one stream . So it doesn't matter where a file is located. Then it reads what is inside so you can type in what you remember.
mikestew 3 days ago
Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode.
I can make the apologetics for just about anything in macOS. After over 20 years of using OS X/macOS, I still can't make the case for this one. Imagine a button has focus, you hit Enter, and it allows you to change the text on the button instead of executing the code behind button.click(). That behavior is just as dumb if a file has focus in Finder.
tpmoney 3 days ago
Aside from “it’s historically always done that”, I’d argue that because you use arrow keys to navigate around the finder (left, right, up, down to select, CMD-up to go up a directory, it only makes sense that CMD-down would open a directory (or file/application). And within that context it makes more sense than “enter”.
rufo 3 days ago
Because, as one of the original GUIs, when they conceived of how the Macintosh worked, you used the command keys to perform actions on files, and you could rename the file just by typing. Cmd-O was the shortcut for opening files, which makes sense for obvious reasons.
When they released the Macintosh to the world, Andy Hertzfeld realized that people were renaming items in the Finder by accident; so he added the "return" key (already used to confirm actions) as an "arming" step[1].
Now, one might ask: wouldn't that interrupt people navigating via the keyboard? No, because the original Macintosh didn't have arrow keys on the keyboard. This was an intentional choice—or, perhaps, mandate from Jobs—as a way to get users to use the mouse as their primary input device, and to force developers to create mouse-driven interfaces. With no arrow keys, no typeahead search implemented, and a clean slate for designing an interface, I'm guessing using Return to open a file wasn't a strong consideration at the time.
Why wasn't it changed? Because Mac OS X was made for Mac users, and we all have muscle memory dating back decades :P
[1]: https://www.folklore.org/A_Floppy_named_lsadkfjalhkjh.html
userbinator 3 days ago
because the original Macintosh didn't have arrow keys on the keyboard.
However, the very next keyboard they designed did have them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Macintosh_Plus_Exte...
I can't imagine editing text on a keyboard with no arrow keys to be any better than the horrible experience of doing it on a mobile device... which might be why Apple decided to add them quite early in the history of the Mac.
It's also ironic that despite justifying the menubar at the top of the screen as being easier to hit, they then totally missed the awkwardness of not being able to navigate with only one hand by using the arrow keys and the nearby return/enter. Watching someone experienced using Windows' file manager with only the keyboard is almost vi-like in its efficiency.
hyperjeff 2 days ago
Not sure if you're just talking about past design, but currently you can use arrow keys and enter in the menubar, tapping first letter of options to hops there, and can activate menubar with a keyboard shortcut of your choosing. You can also hop directly to help, start typing and get matches to select, all without a mouse.
lungeloslx 2 days ago
Each and every comment that is in agreement here is a bunch of former Windows users who wanted to move Explorer to Mac with them. I have used MacOS for over 15 years. Finder has never stood in my way. I don’t even know what “see the file system” means. Too many words to say “I don’t know how to organize my files on a computer but I consider myself a power user”
AlotOfReading 2 days ago
I don’t even know what “see the file system” means.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Fi...
anon7000 2 days ago
I don’t get how this is any easier in windows explorer. In both windows and Mac I can just pin the drive itself or just the root directory to the sidebar and then use list/grid/nested columns to pop in and out of the hierarchy however I want. In both Mac and windows, the default home folders (like “documents”) sort of hide the rest of the filesystem from you.
sparqlittlestar 2 days ago
I'm however so confused by Windows' top level of the hierarchy. Like the Desktop contains the computer which contains the Desktop, yet that one doesn't have the computer in it. And likewise for the bin, the Configuration Panel, yet not Settings, etc. etc.
Desktop > My Computer > C > Users > Me > Desktop
Desktop > My Computer > C > Users > Me > OneDrive > DesktopNinjaTrance 2 days ago
> Each and every comment that is in agreement here is a bunch of former Windows users who wanted to move Explorer to Mac with them
Linux users also agree that Finder sucks.
SwellJoe 3 days ago
My most recent laptop purchase was a Macbook Pro, because the price/performance is just so lopsided with the price of memory pushing everything up to Apple-like prices, it didn't make sense to buy an x86 laptop. But, coming from Linux it's a miserable user experience. I genuinely hate macOS. Every time I use it, I'm surprised by some weird thing about it, some limitation, some annoyance, some weird bug. Installing software is ridiculous. And, yes, Finder is weird for the sake of being weird.
I simply don't understand how Apple has the reputation it has.
nottorp 3 days ago
Maybe because you can open a terminal, do port install mc and then ignore the Finder most of the time :)
SwellJoe 3 days ago
I do most of my work in the terminal, so the Finder is less of an issue than it would be otherwise. I like for the desktop environment to be nice, but I don't necessarily need it for much more than managing the browser and terminal windows most of the time. But, the weird layout of the filesystem and more limited terminal environment on macOS is also uncomfortable. In some cases, it's merely different rather than worse, but the overall experience for me is notably less comfortable than Linux.
abacadaba 3 days ago
same. now that there are finally good linux laptops with good battery and haptic touchpads i'm having a bit of buyers remorse, and will probably pick one up soon.
such a waste of damn good hardware though
raffraffraff 3 days ago
Who currently makes a decent haptic trackpad? I have an Asus with gorgeous OLED screen, good battery life etc and fucking GARBAGE trackpad.
abacadaba 5 hours ago
was thinking either the framework or xps 14, but have not use their trackpads extensively but both haptic
raffraffraff 3 days ago
It's the hardware. Always the hardware. Best trackpad (ALL other trackpads are trash), best build and screen (since the first aluminium Macbook Pro retina) and right now, best silicon. But I also hate MacOS.
ivankra 3 days ago
You know you can just use Linux on it. I work from a Linux VM in UTM as my main desktop whole day, with Mac OS just being a VM hypervisor for me, it's pretty good!
ed_mercer 2 days ago
Hi, can you elaborate on this? Why not use Asahi Linux?
SwellJoe 2 days ago
I can't speak for the person you've asked, but, I have an M5 Macbook Pro and Asahi Linux only recently got support for M3 Macs, and that support is marked WIP on most features: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/
I assume it'll be a couple of years before Asahi is an option for my machine.
ivankra 2 days ago
I'd love to try Asahi some day, but it only supports older hardware up to M3 for now and feature support is rather fragmented: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/. As it's a small and slow moving project, it'd also unfortunately mean living with all the bugs and quirks for a long time if you choose it.
What you could do instead is just set up your favorite Linux distro in an arm64 VM and run it with UTM (a popular qemu wrapper). Works nearly flawlessly! Very usable as a daily development setup. I connect it to an external monitor and keyboard and can't believe it's not a Linux box most of the day. They even got virtualized Vulkan (almost) working now. Switching between VMs and host is trivial and you have proper virgl acceleration in VMs without fighting a lot of nonsense like I had in the past with virt-manager on Linux hardware - if you like to develop in VMs like me, this alone would justify switching from a Linux box to a Mac.
Virtualization costs me ~10-15% in multicore performance - still a bargain considering how far ahead Mac hardware is compared to anything x86. Linux arm64 is very well supported by open source these days. Just proprietary software is often behind e.g. Zoom, Slack are still missing native binaries but you could run them in a browser.
Here's a more detailed experience report (though a bit dated) from another user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42541508 https://blog.disintegrator.dev/posts/dev-virtual-machine/
ed_mercer 2 days ago
Awesome write-up, thank you! This makes me want to try this out as well.
wrs 3 days ago
“Weird for the sake of being weird”…you know Finder existed first, right?
dTal 2 days ago
Not true by any stretch, though parent didn't mention any competitor
MacOS's current Finder dates from 2001. Earlier versions of "Finder" were a completely different piece of software - different code, different interface, different UI metaphor. File manager software predating it:
Windows Explorer
GNOME/Nautilus
KDE/Konqueror
X11/xfm (X File Manager)
sundry proprietary Unix workstations
Everyone who comes to Finder from anywhere else complains. Finder is weird for the sake of being weird.
tonyedgecombe 2 days ago
MacOS's current Finder dates from 2001
Arguably it dates from NeXTSTEP so 1989.
wrs 2 days ago
We’re talking about the UI here, not the binary executable. Finder was extensively reworked in 2001 from the file manager in NeXT to be much closer to the original Finder, and most of the complaints here are about UI decisions taken from the original Finder, released in 1984. That predates Windows (not just Windows Explorer, which is from ten years later), Nautilus (created by Andy Hertzfeld of the original Mac team to be like Finder!), and the Unix variants, even the venerable xfm, which dates from the early 1990s.
The PARC interface (by which I guess you mean the Xerox Star) had significant differences, and I think would confuse any modern computer user far worse than the Finder. The Lisa was closer to the Star but the Mac used a simplified model that just equated files to icons.
Source: I lived through this process and used all of these for actual work at some point. The Finder’s influence on GUI file management was rather like the iPhone’s influence on phone management.
NinjaTrance 2 days ago
> Finder was extensively reworked in 2001 from the file manager in NeXT to be much closer to the original Finder, and most of the complaints here are about UI decisions taken from the original Finder, released in 1984.
Why would they ignore all the lessons learned between 1984 and 2001?
That's the reason why most people complain about Finder today.
hn_throw2025 3 days ago
I went through similar feelings switching to the Mac ecosystem (from Linux) in 2012... But I quickly settled on some tools I wouldn't be without now.
Finder is terrible, but I switched for Forklift early on. I think it's amazing, so much better than the Gnome and KDE file managers I used before. It covers so many bases, from being a twin-pane orthodox manager, directory comparer and synchroniser, bulk regex renamer, etc. Handles local directories as well as remote ones via SFTP, WebDAV, S3, Google Drive, SMB, NFS, etc. And switching to Alfred was a real pleasure. I could see where Gnome Do took inspiration from, but it's a pale imitation. I also installed iTerm2 early on, and I use it to this day. Easily the best fit terminal for my purposes.
Suppafly 2 days ago
>My most recent laptop purchase was a Macbook Pro, because the price/performance is just so lopsided with the price of memory pushing everything up to Apple-like prices, it didn't make sense to buy an x86 laptop.
I see people justify their Mac purchases this way all the time, but IMO it's just cope and not their actual primary reason for making that decision. I've never seen where the math actually worked out where the price/performance actually made Apple made sense.
SwellJoe 2 days ago
Have you looked at the CPU performance of Apple Silicon lately?
eviks 7 hours ago
> files the way you see your camera roll.
How is that any better let alone any good? It somewhat works for images because you can identify the content easily. But that's not the case for most of the other files, you don't get much of memory/recognition of one paragraph off text vs the other!
> 1,000 files. One year later a person knows almost nothing about a file, but they still have to find it
So you'd spend hours of scrolling reading everything instead of using those bits of knowledge to search???
eszed 3 days ago
Thanks for this. I'll give it a try, though I'm not someone who experiences much frustration with Finder, because I maintain a solid folder structure, and use Alfred (first) for virtually all file interactions.
The deciders for me, in case you're interested:
- Privacy. It doesn't look like you are trying to get my data. I'll be using network monitoring to verify.
- Automatically groups like files, regardless of file location. Yes, I know I can do this manually with tags, but I... don't.
- Polish. The screenshots make it look like a native interface. Bonus points if I can set it to hide until mouseover, like my dock bar.
I'm most curious about how it will function alongside Dropbox, particularly with cloud-stored files. I have several times my HDD in Dropbox (largely in folders shared with me); I know Keptor won't be able to read stub files, but if it greedily downloads and fills up my HDD it'll be an instant day-killer and uninstall. If it reads on-device files, and then stores a sparse representation so it can still present them in a list once they've been removed to the cloud it'll be great; I will manually sync and de-sync some folders to get them into the data. (If it incrementally syncs cloud files to my device, reads them, and then pushes them back up it'd be amazing, and I'll buy a lifetime license immediately - but I'm not sure those permissions exist.)
iamcalledrob 2 days ago
It's funny, as a 20+ year macOS user, I've really struggled with file managers that are not Finder.
I don't think it's that Finder is brilliant -- it just encourages a unique set of power user workflows that aren't replicated elsewhere.
For example, Open/Save panels that act as drop targets, and navigate to the dropped file's parent folder. I use this all the time, and it drives me nuts when I can't do this on Linux (Nautilus) and Windows. Enter to rename, too. These habits are very hard to break!
thrwkmmshf00083 2 days ago
You probably know this already but some don't (I certainly didn't for an embarrassingly long time): Rename is F2 in Windows and Linux (well, most distros File manager anyway).
arjie 3 days ago
In the end, it turns out for me that the classic explorer Tree View is the most intuitive. I know where things are as a sub-tree system. I get that hard links etc. complicate this and perhaps there are smart folders etc which do not fit this model well but I find I frequently want to “Go Up” in the hierarchy and this requires an uncomfortable shortcut on a Macbook (arrow key) or a menu button rather than a toolbar icon.
But these are complaints. The right answer is to see if I can build a file explorer for MacOS that behaves in the fashion I desire.
simondotau 2 days ago
Once I got used to column view, I miss it on other operating systems. I don't feel like there's anything I can't do with two Finder windows in column view. And for everything else there's the terminal.
arjie 2 days ago
For the main pane? I used to have Windows Explorer with the column view in the main pane and the tree view on the left pane and it was perfect. I don't really mind Nautilus with the breadcrumbs on the top and columns in the main pane. But I think simply going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard unless you navigated there manually, but I'm usually in finder because of `open ~/Folder/Path` and so I end up manually going Cmd-G and typing my path in because it's too hard to navigate otherwise.
andrekandre 2 days ago
column view is the one saving grace of finder; the rest is best left untouched
xnickb 3 days ago
Wow. I'm a Linux user and I have to use Mac for some work related tasks. I genuinely hate Finder and was going to lean back and enjoy reading this article.
This went into a direction I didn't expect at all.
jlund-molfese 3 days ago
Yeah, as someone whose favorite file manager is Dolphin, I have the opposite preferences of the author of the marketing post. I feel like Finder is overly-simplified and tries to abstract the directory structure away from the user too much.
davidee 3 days ago
Finder is indeed frustrating. "Recent" seems like an attempt to fix this without the need to use some giant camera roll?
The (hard) problem is that almost every finder alternative/add-on I've tried is someone else's ideal workflow that still doesn't sit well with me. I find KDE's Dolphin similarly frustrating - for very similar reasons.
Both work marginally better (for me) when used in concert with the quick-find tools like Alfred (or Spotlight) and KRunner. None of these are perfect.
Showerthought: maybe the "find files" interfaces aren't the worst offenders; maybe it's the "place files" workflows that are problematic and we're trying to solve the wrong problem?
bahmboo 3 days ago
If only recent actually worked. I see no rhyme or reason why something gets in recent. I guess finder has to be involved. So often I am working with files between apps, saving and opening and such and the files never appear in recent which defeats the purpose for me.
And then we have the spotlight deamon processes which seem to exist only to burn earth's precious resources.
But when it works it works great. ymmv
cosmotic 2 days ago
I really like Finder. It's consistent, reliable, accessible, and predictable. There are easy ways to see the real file system and windows certainly doesn't do any better in this regard (see: libraries and other namespaces).
runxel 3 days ago
I don't get it. Finder is okay. Yes, there are some idiosyncracies, but once you got to know them (e.g. when coming over from Windows), it's smooth sailing - and much better than the Explorer.
Why is seemingly every single person on HN unhappy with the Finder?
notourproblem 2 days ago
> much better than the Explorer
In what ways?
Tags are nice. Can't think of anything else.
kalleboo 2 days ago
I'm only forced to use Windows occasionally but the things that always annoy me when I do are the lack of: Column View, QuickLook, spring-loaded folders, hierarchical view, calculate folder sizes in list view. The worst is how folders sort on top, so you can't just type the name of a file to jump down to it if there's a folder with a similar name. The whole tree view is so weird with how it treats folders as this special different thing.
I do not understand how people can get serious work done with Windows Explorer, but I presume that's just because I'm not used to it.
lapcat 3 days ago
This submission appears to be a self-promotional advertisement by the developer, who created a HN account literally an hour ago.
"Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If anything, this should be a Show HN.
maltch 3 days ago
Fair, and I should have posted it as a Show HN. It's my app and my essay, and I said so in the thread as soon as it came up. New account because I've read here for years without commenting. Happy for a mod to relabel it.
bbg2401 3 days ago
At least respond to comments yourself.
kqp 3 days ago
I’d like to propose a rule that all the Finder bashers in this thread accompany their complaint with at least one concrete example.
I’m no Apple fanboy, but blind hate is just as bad as blind love, and so far 100% of the specifics brought up have turned out to be people who just don’t have a basic familiarity with the software. I genuinely don’t begrudge a person sticking to what they know, but it’s a point towards what’s good for you and maybe whether it’s intuitive, not towards whether Finder is objectively good or lacks features. I’d be happy to read both real issues and people learning more about Finder, but just “Finder sucks” doesn’t help anybody.
maltch 3 days ago
I think frustrating is the most appropriate word. Finder is great if my files are organized and I know exactly where something is. My concrete one... The save dialog opens where it was last, so files land in places I didn’t choose, and nothing in Finder or Spotlight helps me later unless I remember the name or the contents.
kqp 2 days ago
Thanks for something concrete.
In the open and save file dialogs, the location is a dropdown containing, amongst other things, recent locations, which would list where the file ended up. I think the number of recents is configurable in System Settings.
It should also show up in the Recents sidebar entry, though I don’t use it so I’m not sure.
The save dialog sidebar is configurable, I’ve put my “inbox” there.
I agree it would be better for this to be an option, but I think the status quo is more clicks, not nothing exists.
chownie 2 days ago
The keybindings (and lack of documentation for them) in Finder sucks, having to google how to show hidden files in a save dialogue every time I have to do it sucks, having to search through the UI every time for the non-obvious way to get to a specific path sucks. Do I need to mention .DS_Store?
There are loads of different file managers for many different operating systems, they look and act the way they do from years of refining UX in response to the way users actually interact with them. This is why the file manager on my android phone is so similar to the one on my windows machine, and my linux install. All of them are different to Finder which appeared to lock some UX decisions in circa 1990 and then refuse to budge, this is why Finder sucks.
It's the one OS where file and folder manipulation via the terminal is actually sometimes faster for me, no need to go digging for the specific ritual Finder uses in opposition to every other file manager to do the task.
mosura 3 days ago
The problem with Finder is historic. The classic Mac finder was a work of art, if you are the sort of person that arranges things spatially, but most programmers are not. Hence NeXT created something else which got merged back incoherently into what became OSX.
The Risc OS filer remains king, largely because managing windows on Risc OS is much more tolerable.
flyingshelf 3 days ago
You didn't read past the title.
mosura 3 days ago
You don’t understand words?
Sat_P 2 days ago
Since buying an M1 Mac at launch, I’ve always been able to find most things with Finder. Prior to that, I was a Windows user since school in the 1990s, and windows search was absolutely useless. So glad I moved to Mac.
NinjaTrance 2 days ago
Yes, the search in Finder is better than in Windows.
But the UI is worse.
coffeesoda 3 days ago
I agree! I've been building this alternative file browser called 'Overlap' which uses Mac's tagging system. Mainly for images. It suggests tags based on Apple's photo classifier & similarity to your own tags. You can also explore data using a visual Venn Diagram.
https://github.com/cruxxxxxx/Overlap
By no means perfect but it's helping solve my moodboarding needs.
fl0id 3 days ago
So it's like fancy "last used" in finder?
forsalebypwner a day ago
plus a subscription!
arisAlexis 3 days ago
Recently switched to Mac and I always have this question mark like how can this be so bad after decades and why is everyone cool with it
gherkinnn 2 days ago
> So I built a custom app for him: a drawer that eliminates folder hierarchy and location knowledge
Fair, that is something I've observed since the introduction of iOS, where most users don't navigate folders and open files, but flip it and open an app and browse the recent files.
As for Finder itself, the column view and hit-space-to-preview is all I want for my basic needs and I miss it whenever I have to use Windows. Can't speak to other systems.
marcelo-earth 3 days ago
Also Spotlight worked decently until a few years ago, but not anymore
Does anyone else experience this? Like it freezes when searching for programs?
pcunite 3 days ago
Coming from Windows, what's outrageous about Finder, is that when I'm looking at a SMB share has is named the same as a local directory, it is very confusing as to which location is which. Scary. Like, show the full path! Not "Folder" at the top. Just crazy.
dvt 3 days ago
> Computer folders are still organized in structures set up some 50 years ago. Operating systems change. Computers change. Search changes. But this has never changed. I can't change that.
And we've been using the Dewey Decimal System for like 150 years. Both are good systems. Kepter (a visual/gallery system) would break down when looking at more than a dozen files (or when files are very similar). I don't really think it's a good idea.
What we desperately need is a system-wide (or at least documents-wide) semantic/vector search, which is basically a weekend project and a $4.99 one-time purchase.
microflash 3 days ago
At this point, I've come to live with it. I do use Supercharge[1] to fix some of the warts.