The wife inherited the daughter’s Mac. I am in charge (apparently) of learning how to use it.
I am struggling with the file organization. In particular, I need to organize a butt-load of photos that currently reside haphazardly on the Mac.
In Windows, I would simply go into Computer to view the file hierarchy; then, I would create new folders and sub-folders, maybe rename some, and drag the appropriate photos into the proper folders.
In the Mac, I can’t even figure out how to view all the files, let alone organize them.
What is the best method (step-by-step, please) of accomplishing this?
(btw, I’m not even sure which OS it is; I think it’s the one before Leopard (?). The Mac is around 5 years old).
‘Finder’ on a mac is equivalent to ‘windows explorer’. It behaves much the same way: you can create folders, drag and drop etc.
Finder is always open but it’s easy to lose it because of one major difference in the way that Macs handle open windows. On a mac it’s possible to close all the windows but still have the application open. This catches out every mac newbie.
The easiest way to get back to the Finder is to hold down the command key and hit tab until the app-switcher dialog comes up. Select the blue happy faces. Now open a new finder window by selecting File -> New Finder Window from the main menu. Open a couple of those windows to make it easy to drag from one folder to another.
I’m also a PC/Windows guy, but have had to provide extensive support for my ex-gf on her Mac (favorite quote from her after I asked if she’d done anything to explain why she was tripping AV alerts all over the place: “I sit around and watch random porn all day, download everything I see, and make sure to open scammy email whenever I can. Stop asking questions and fix it.”)
I would recommend first updating the OS (click on the Apple icon and “update software”). But that’s just a matter of best practice. The file structure/management hasn’t really changed much over the course of revisions (at least to my Macular vision). If you have any prior experience with GUI Linux distributions, well, that’s basically what Mac OS is.
Since the photos you speak of are apparently scattered haphazardly, it may be easiest to use Finder and search for photo extensions (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, etc). Then you can relocate those files to a “sane” file structure.
If you haven’t asked your daughter already, you may want to ask if there was a method to her madness. Some people arrange files in ways that seem to be the result of a drunkard on acid sniffing glue with a concussion and a Lithium overdose… but it makes sense to them.
As noted, you need to use Finder windows the same way you used Explorer windows on a PC. The top of each window has a control that lets you toggle the window contents between Icon, List, Columns (a NeXT approach) and Preview (where you can see thumbnails of the file content).
You can have multiple windows open, create folders and drag files around as you want.
Another, Mac Centric approach to managing photos is iPhoto. It is pretty flexible about letting you arrange photos by Album, Event, time, person (it has facial recognition that is not too bad) and so on. Here is a link discussing from a PC user’s point of view. When you import photos to iPhoto (typically from a camera or card), it makes a copy and then hides the underlying file organization from you.
BTW, the “Finder” is the icon that looks like a square face, smiling. Or, you can just click on a blank area of the desktop and you’ll have the Finder’s tool bar on top. Like others said, it’s pretty much “Windows Explorer”.
You might also consider downloading the free Google Picasa photo manager and using that. Bonus is that once you learn it, the same program is available for Windows.
A few years ago Apple did a big advertising push to get people to switch from PCs to Macs. Hereis one of their sites written with that ad campaign in question.
I’m in a minorly similar boat–Mrs. Devil expects me to keep her Mac running and maintained in our office. Has anyone here had experience with an OSX guest on a Win 7 host using VirtualBox? It would make poking around and experimenting with things a lot easier.
Per the rules that Apple set forth, you cant run OS X on a non-Apple computer. So maybe you could instal Win7 on a Mac Book and run OS X through Virtualbox. Other than that, no.
Thanks. I could, theoretically, just open one of the older macs (we have three or four collecting dust) and use that, but that would prevent me from being excruciatingly lazy. VM means same machine, no need to switch keyboards/mice/etc., and most importantly, a shared clipboard.
While it may be against the Apple Terms of Use, it can be done, and a quick Google will give lots of links to howto’s, and probably full disk image files (I have one I have never booted up, but I can’t remember where it came from).
It is really helpful when you have to test a website against a variety of client browsers - you don’t need a rack of macs and PCs, just some Virtual Machines.
It’s also wrong. Cut and paste of files in the Finder works just as you’d expect it to (except for the Mac using command rather than control for a modifier), ever since Lion (Mac OS X 10.7, released a couple of years ago. The current version is Mountain Lion (10.8), released a few months back.).
In general, though, the usual problem Windows folks have with the Mac is overthinking stuff. Always try dragging-and-dropping as a solution if possible; it usually does exactly what you’d guess.
Also, to answer the OP’s original question, click on the desktop or the smiley face in the dock to switch to the finder, then press Command + N to open a new finder window and start navigating files.
OP, you have my sympathy. When I changed from my PC to a Mac, this was (and still is) my biggest complaint with the Macs - file organization, especially of photos and songs.
The weirdness of organization of photos and songs has nothing to do with it being MacOS and everything to do with a couple of simply AWFUL Apple applications, iPhoto and iTunes. I don’t use either. My sound and image files are organized in ordinary folders like any other files. (Technically so are the ones referenced by iPhoto and iTunes but they do their dead-level best to hide the existence of images and sounds AS FILES from you)
I assume iTunes for Windows does the same thing. I don’t think there is a Windows version of iPhoto (count your blessings).
To each his own, I guess.
I LOVE iPhoto and iTunes - I have 30,000+ photos in iPhoto, and 10,000+ songs in iTunes, and they both work perfectly for organizing my photos and music.
I used windows from 95 til I got my first first Mac last year. The transition was extremely easy. Finder is very similar to Explorer. I have always found iTunes to be better than Windows Media Player. And I like how iPhoto works. They are all easy to use.
To complain about minor differences says more about you then it says about the hardware/software.
Spoiler!
It says you are an old dog that has trouble learning new tricks
iPhoto may organize your photos in a way that suits you within iPhoto (and allow you to access them from other iLife applications, and do the other things that Apple’s decided you might like to do with them), but take a look inside your iPhoto Library file: each one of your 30,000+ photos has multiple copies in there hogging hard disk space for no very good reason.
LOL!
I have Terabytes of storage - what should I care about a few extra files?
And, FYI, those files are there for a truly excellent reason - they allow super-fast scrolling and non-destructive edits.
