{"id":1513,"date":"2016-05-31T10:05:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T14:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2016-05-17T13:07:10","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T17:07:10","slug":"use-quick-look-to-peek-inside-files-and-folders-on-your-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/use-quick-look-to-peek-inside-files-and-folders-on-your-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Quick Look to Peek inside Files and Folders on Your Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finder icons sometimes hint at what\u2019s inside, but if you find yourself opening file after file to look at the contents quickly, OS X has a little-known feature just for you: Quick Look. To give it a spin, find a file in the Finder, click it once to select it, and press the Space bar. If it\u2019s a supported type of file, Quick Look displays a window showing the contents of the file. Press the Space bar again to close the window.<\/p>\n

\"Quick-Look-Excel\"<\/p>\n

If the document you\u2019re previewing has multiple pages, you\u2019ll see thumbnails that you can scroll through using your mouse or trackpad, or by pressing the Page Up\/Page Down keys. But you aren\u2019t limited to just viewing a file in Quick Look: click the Open in\u00a0app-name<\/i>\u00a0button to open the file in its default app, or click the Share button in the upper right to send the file to someone else via email or Messages or another sharing service.<\/p>\n

If you need to scan through a set of files in a folder, you can navigate between them using the arrow keys while the Quick Look window remains open \u2014 how you move among the files depends on the Finder window\u2019s view. In List view, for instance, using the Up and Down arrow keys can be a great way to browse through a collection of pictures. You can even interact with the Finder while using Quick Look, which means you can delete an unwanted photo by pressing Command-Delete while previewing it.<\/p>\n

Quick Look works well for comparing multiple similar files. Select a bunch of files and press the Space bar to open them all in Quick Look. The Left and Right arrow keys let you cycle through your selection; there are also Forward and Back buttons that appear in the top left of the Quick Look window. Next to those buttons is a Thumbnail button that displays the selected files in a grid\u2014click any thumbnail to focus on just that item. To remove the distraction of your Desktop, click the Zoom button in a Quick Look window. You can start a slideshow from there, or just press Option-Space to open Quick Look in Full-screen view with the slideshow already started.<\/p>\n

\"Quick-Look-penguins\"<\/p>\n

So what file types does Quick Look work with? Not everything, but\u00a0out of the box<\/a>, Quick Look supports text files, RTF files, HTML files, images, audio, video, PDFs, iWork documents, Microsoft Office files, and even fonts. Third-party apps can extend Quick Look to support proprietary formats, too, and developers have even released independent Quick Look generators, as they\u2019re called. If you want to look inside Zip archives and other compressed files, check out\u00a0BetterZip<\/a>, for instance, and if you write in the Markdown formatting language a lot,\u00a0QLMarkdown<\/a>\u00a0is worth installing.<\/p>\n

\"Quick-Look-BetterZip\"<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s used mostly in the Finder, Quick Look is available elsewhere. For example, if you\u2019re in an app\u2019s Open dialog, you can select a file and press the Space bar to preview it right there. When restoring a file in Time Machine, use Quick Look to see if it\u2019s the version you want. Most Internet file transfer apps, like Cyberduck, Fetch, and Transmit, support Quick Look, making it easy to preview a file on a remote FTP server. You can also preview an attachment in Messages by selecting it and pressing the Space bar.<\/p>\n

Finally, note that if your Mac has a newer Apple trackpad, such as the Magic Trackpad 2, you can invoke Quick Look by force-touching a Finder icon (press deeply until you feel a click) instead of pressing the Space bar.<\/p>\n

Quick Look takes just a moment to learn, but it can save you hours of time poring through files on your Mac.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever found yourself opening file after file, looking for the right one, you\u2019ll be pleased to learn that there\u2019s a better way: OS X\u2019s Quick Look feature. With a single keypress, you can peek inside nearly any file on the Mac, making it easy to compare files, sort photos, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39,49,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-os-x","category-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Quick-Look-Desktop-1080x675.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YLEm-op","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1664,"url":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/teleport-around-your-mac-with-the-sidebar\/","url_meta":{"origin":1513,"position":0},"title":"Teleport Around Your Mac with the Sidebar","author":"computeradv","date":"September 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you\u2019re having trouble getting to your frequently used folders on the Mac easily, a few minutes learning about the sidebar could make all the difference. 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Have you ever noticed the Path Bar at the bottom of Finder windows?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tcn.tidbits.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Path-Bar-folder-hierarchy.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tcn.tidbits.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Path-Bar-folder-hierarchy.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tcn.tidbits.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Path-Bar-folder-hierarchy.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tcn.tidbits.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Path-Bar-folder-hierarchy.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29036,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/running-low-on-space-on-your-mac-heres-how-to-clear-unnecessary-data-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1513,"position":2},"title":"Running Low on Space on Your Mac? Here\u2019s How to Clear Unnecessary Data","author":"computeradv","date":"June 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"SSDs are great\u2014they\u2019re fast, durable, and reliable\u2014but they\u2019re also expensive, which results in many of us not having as much storage built into our Macs as we\u2019d like. 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You\u2019re most likely to notice this in the Finder, if you work regularly in two side-by-side windows for moving files around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Align windows in mass Sierra","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tip-Sierra-align-windows-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tip-Sierra-align-windows-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tip-Sierra-align-windows-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tip-Sierra-align-windows-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tip-Sierra-align-windows-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26871,"url":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/count-selected-items-in-a-folder-with-the-finders-status-bar\/","url_meta":{"origin":1513,"position":5},"title":"Count Selected Items in a Folder with the Finder\u2019s Status Bar","author":"computeradv","date":"July 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"When you work in a Finder window on the Mac, take note of the helpful Status bar. 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