Spring-Loaded Folders

Spring-Loaded Folders
Mac Tip#71/11-Sept-2002

Mac OS X was a huge change for Apple computers. Apple created a new Operating System in the face of the previous one which had been gradually developed over a period of nearly 20 years.

Although OS X (and Jaguar in particular) brings us many benefits, we also lost a few things we were used to. One feature which was useful in OS 9, was lost in OS X and has returned (more or less) with Jaguar was Spring-Loaded folders. Click-and-a-Half (Mac Tip#45/06-Mar-2002) talked about this.

Spring-Loaded Folders is a feature some of my clients new to computers have found a little confusing. Let’s say you want to drag a file from one folder to another. Let’s also say the folder you’re dragging the file to is closed. When you hover over the closed folder for a moment it suddenly pops open. If there are any other closed folders inside there and you hover over one of them that also pops open. And, just like the Russian dolls nested inside one another, the process continues.

This can allow you to drag a file directly into a folder which is nested several deep inside another folder.

The trick is that when you finally drop the file you’re moving or if you simply move it away from being over the window which has opened the folder snaps shut again, and you’re left with a clean desktop.

Although that feature disappeared with the introduction of OS X it’s returned in Jaguar, but with a slight difference. While dragging a file onto a folder activates the Spring-Loaded feature, Jaguar users still can’t use the “Click-and-a-Half” method. We can however hold down the Space bar while dragging to force the folder to spring open immediately we hover over it.

To control how long you need to hover over a folder before it pops open you can go to the Finder and choose Edit Menu — Preferences — General Tab (OS 9) or Finder Menu — Preferences (OS 10.2). Now you’ll see that you can set the delay before opening. Simply adjust it until it works best for you.