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by linsomniac 487 days ago
What is the deal with MacOS file dialogs? A couple days ago I was trying to open a project in Cursor, and I click on "home" and my name, and then it has the directories grouped by year created. So I type in the search box, but it's now searching some other context, like the whole system or something? I don't even have tons of files/directories in my home directory "ls | wc -l" gives 36.

It's like they designed it while watching High Fidelity: "I sorted my albums autobiographically. So if I'm looking for <this album> I have to remember that it's under albums I bought for a girl but ended up not giving to her." "That sounds like a great idea!"
4 comments
sureIy 487 days ago
> then it has the directories grouped by year created

That's a setting you set.

Right click on empty space > uncheck "Use groups"

Or in that context menu, select "Show View Options" and customize it to your liking. My liking is "Group by kind" (folders to the top) then "Sort by name"

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kstrauser 487 days ago
If you start searching, I think it defaults to scope "This Mac". That's probably right for most cases. If you want to open a Word doc named Fnord, you'd kind of hope Finder would... find it... wherever it was. But you can also click next to "This Mac" to switch it the context of the directory you're in.

Also, cmd-shift-G (the Finder shortcut for "Go to Folder...") will let you start typing a path.

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sureIy 487 days ago
> If you start searching, I think it defaults to scope "This Mac".

Correct, and it's the first setting I change.

Finder > Settings > Advanced > When performing a search: "Search the Current Folder"

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wpm 487 days ago
Sounds like it was sorted by “most recent” (not the column, but the view mode).

That said the Open dialog is a sad sack stand in for even the flawed Finder. 20 year Mac user here: I developed the muscle memory to just have a Finder window open to the file I want so I can drag and drop from that into the Open dialog.

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linsomniac 484 days ago
Thanks everyone, these pointers were really helpful. At one time I think I set it to "most recent" and forgot about it, since I'm not using the finder a whole lot. I hadn't even thought about going into settings, so I went there and did some tweaks, including defaulting to searching within folder by default, and changing some locations that it defaults to, which I think will really help.
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