The macOS Mojave 10.14 is the next desktop operating system to be released this fall by Apple for Mac computers. And although this release has not yet taken place, there are many like me who are not developers, and still, benefit from the company’s public beta program to take full advantage of the new features added during the summer. If this is your case, we’ll tell you more today: how to use the new quick actions in macOS Mojave’s Finder.
Work directly with your files from the Finder with the new quick actions
Yes, indeed! Thanks to the new quick actions, it is no longer necessary to open a file to perform basic editing tasks. For these purposes, there are the “Quick Actions” built into macOS Mojave.
“The Quick Actions in the Preview pane allow you to work on your files directly from the Finder. Rotate images, protect documents with a password, shorten videos and more without opening any apps and without having to rename or save the file. You can even work on multiple files at once or assign an Automator task as a Quick Action.” (Apple)
To see the Quick Actions available, you’ll need to enable the preview pane in Finder. To do this, simply open a new Finder window and select the menu bar option View → Show preview, or press the Shift-Comand-P keys.
Quick actions for images, video, and audio
Quick actions are located in the lower right corner of the Finder window, just below the preview of the selected file. These actions will change depending on the file: for images, when you click Rotate left, the image rotates counterclockwise, while clicking Dialing displays an enhanced Quick Look window that provides a set of marking tools.
If you select two or more images in the Finder, the Dial button will change to Create PDF, allowing you to convert the set of images you have selected into a single PDF document. And if a QuickTime compatible video or audio file is selected, Dialing will be replaced by a third tool that will open the file in a Quick View window with an editing tape to trim it.
How to customize quick actions in macOS Mojave
I suppose you’ve already noticed that at the far right of the default quick action bar is the third button under the name More… Click on this option and then select Customize… Then you’ll be taken to the Extensions pane in System Preferences, where you can select other actions to add to the Finder Preview pane and tailor it to your specific needs.
As you may have imagined, the actions you have available will depend on the applications you have installed on your Mac, as well as the pre-existing Apple scripts on your computer.
Apple is already encouraging app developers to add support for more quick action on their applications, but you can also create your own custom applications using the Automator application. Automator is a tool that requires some learning, however, if you want to get a useful example, you can check out the tutorial we offered you not long ago on how to resize images quickly using your own Automator service.
Remember that macOS Mojave brings us a lot of new features and functions, from the dark mode to the automatic organization of the desktop in batteries, a new screen capture interface more useful and easy to use, and much more.