The first step you take when working with a file or group of files is to open and save them. In the middle of that task, you may need to access the dialog box for these tasks, which has a lot of interesting tricks and options to work with.
Changes the status of the “Save” dialog box
You are working with a document and you are going to save it: macOS offers you a default dialog box that has two states, one more compact, with fewer options available and the other extended, which allows you to navigate to a particular folder to save the file. However, switching between the two states is unintuitive or unintuitive… and you can jump between them using a keyboard shortcut.
To jump between the two options in the “save” dialog box, simply click on the keyboard shortcut ⌘” (zero) and you can jump between the compact view and the enlarged view.
Although users generally work with the default enlarged view, in some cases the compact view is especially useful when frequently saving files in the same folders that can be accessed directly through the context menu, using the tab key to scroll and the arrows to choose the folder.
Using the expanded “save” dialog box by default
If the problem is that you prefer the expanded dialog box to always be activated by default, you can tell the system through the Terminal to always use it.
You simply have to modify the behavior using a special Terminal specific command, so open the Terminal, which is in Applications > Utilities and add the following command:
This command applies exclusively to the user being executed. If we want to apply it to all OS X users, then we will use:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true
This command applies exclusively to the user that is running. If we want to apply it to all OS X users, then we will use:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true
Remember that to disable this behavior we will use the same command but replacing TRUE with FALSE
Resize the size of the dialog box
The size of the dialog box is not immutable. If you move the cursor closer to its edges, you can enlarge or reduce its size until it suits your needs. An additional tip: if you use the ⇧ key while clicking and dragging, the window will be reduced from the center, a standard behavior for the entire Finder.
Drag and Drop
If you are working with a dialog box and have to navigate to a specific point in the file structure, remember that you can, if you have a window of that location open, drag the icon of a folder or file directly onto the save dialog box window and it will immediately change the path to that location, which is extremely useful.
Preview files
QuickLook still works when you’re working with a dialog box to save a file. Select a file and press the space bar to inspect files while you are reviewing the contents of a folder to make sure it is the right location to save a file. All the additional QuickLook tricks actually work in this type of dialog box.
File names
When saving the file you will need a name. If what you are saving is related to a file in that location, you can always click on that file and the file name will be used to name the new file. Then, in the corresponding field for the name you can change for example the version of the file.
Mini Finder
If you are working with a dialog box, the files that appear there can be displayed in two states:
Assets – you can click and even drag them
Inactive: they appear dimmed, you can click on them to use their name, but not drag them.
Those Active files allow certain actions with them, such as, from the dialog box itself, using the sidebar to drag a folder from the list to one of the locations or moving that file to another location while you’re working with the save dialog box.
Standard keyboard shortcuts for the Finder
Although they do not all work, some do and are quite useful, such as creating a new folder to save the file there. Although the dialog box has a button to create a folder, it is faster to use ⌘⇧N, name the folder and save the file there.
Also works the keyboard shortcut to delete (⌘Tecla delete) as long as the file/folder is active, i.e. can be selected.
Related posts:
How to change the default app for a file type in macOS
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