Show Folders in Cover Flow View
Mac Tip #341, 04 June 2008

Cover Flow view is the same as List View, but it adds a flippable set of previews.

Cover Flow view for the Finder is new with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Cover Flow takes its cue from iTunes where you can flip through the cover art for music in your iTunes Library. With the Finder though, you are able to flip through the previews for files and folders.

This is particularly useful for images and movies, but is also a quick way to check on the contents of text documents, PDFs and other files.

Cover Flow view is actually the same as List View, except that it adds a flippable set of previews in the top part of the window. Please read Show Information in Finder List View, Mac Tip #339, 21 May 2008 for the basics about this view.

To view a window in Cover Flow view go to the View menu in Finder and choose ‘as Cover Flow’ or press Command 4. If you display the Toolbar on Finder windows, you can of course switch views with the Views buttons.

Cover Flow displays a list of files, sorted as you choose, but each file is also displayed as an icon in the top part of the window. Below the set of icons is a scrollbar, allowing you to scroll left and right through the preview icons.

Make the preview area larger or smaller

Make the preview area larger or smaller by dragging the set of three horizontal lines located at the bottom of the preview area in the centre.

There are several ways to scroll through files and previews:

1. Use the horizontal scroll bar below the previews: click the arrow at either end, click and hold an arrow at either end, drag the ‘thumb’, click in the area between the ‘thumb’ and the end of the scrollbar, or Option click in the scrollbar to jump to that spot. This also changes which file is actually selected.
2. Use the window’s vertical scrollbar in the same way described in point 1. This does not change which file is selected.
3. Select a file and use the arrow keys: the Left and Up arrow keys both move left through the previews / up through the list, while Right and Down arrow keys move right through the previews / down through the list.
4. Click on the previews themselves to jump the selection to a particular file. When the selection moves, that preview also moves to the centre of the Previews area. This technique can allow for very precise selection of a file based on how it looks.

If you press the Space Bar to see a larger sized preview of a file (Quick Look) there’s a very nice Scale effect that shows the file seeming to move forward towards you, with the image in the Previews area as its point of origin.

For added utility click the Disclosure triangle beside any folder whose contents you also wish to view. If a folder is ‘open’ then when you scroll to the next file the selection moves ‘down’ the hierarchy and into the folder’s contents.

If a folder is closed the Previews area simply shows’ the folder’s icon and when you scroll to the next file the selection stays at the same level in the file hierarchy, skipping over the folder’s contents.

Some of these features are much easier to show than to explain, so be sure to view the screencast. Do me a favour, too, if you would, and leave a comment here with your reaction to the screencast.

Screen Flow View the movie

View the larger Screen Flow View Tips movie – small (17.2 Mb, .mov file).

Alternatively, download the Screen Flow View Tips Movie (zipped, 15.8 Mb). After it’s downloaded to your machine, double click it to expand the zipped file and then double click the movie to play it.