Show the Finder Toolbar, Sidebar and Status Bar

Wed 11 February 2009

To make the Toolbar, Sidebar and Status Bar visible or invisible in a Finder window click the ‘jellybean’ in the top right corner of the Finder window.

Show the Finder Toolbar, Sidebar and Status Bar
Mac Tip #371, 11 February 2009

An empty Finder window

Open up a Finder window. What do you see?

The screenshots show 2 different views of my rather empty Desktop. In the first image you see only an empty Finder window with a Title Bar across the top and the Path Bar at the bottom.

See View the Path of a File to find out how to show and hide the Path Bar.

A Finder window with toolbars

In the second image the Finder window displaying my Desktop has a Toolbar across the top and a Sidebar on the left side, as well as a Status Bar across the bottom. All contain useful tools, information, and links.

To make the Toolbar, Sidebar and Status Bar visible — you get all or none — click the ‘jellybean’ in the top right corner of the Finder window. Click it once to make the Toolbar, Sidebar and Status Bar visible, and again to make them invisible.

If you hold down the Command (Apple) key while you click the jellybean repeatedly you’ll see the Toolbar changes slightly with each click. The Command clicks cycle the Toolbar between different views: large or small icons (with and without text), and text-only.

Hold down both Option and Command (Apple) while you click on the ‘jellybean’ and the Customise Toolbar sheet appears.

By the way: experiment with clicking the ‘jellybean’ in other programs too, with and without various modifier keys (ie Command, Option, etc). You may be interested to see what happens in your web browser or mail program or word processor.

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Tagged as: Path Bar, sidebar, Status Bar, toolbar

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{ 2 trackbacks }

Find Files quickly with ready-made Searches — Mac Tips: Wed 18 February 2009 at 06:07:58
How to Set Finder Labels and Sidebar Preferences — Mac Tips: Wed 16 September 2009 at 09:33:26

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Norbert C. Ballauer Wed 11 February 2009 at 12:58:51: Ms Jordan
I notice in your one of your screenshots the finder bar in the upper right hand corner shows a small space just above the space where Google is at, is that something new in OS X-5? as I am still running OS x 4.1.1 and none of my finder pages show that.
It has been a long time since I last wrote to you, hope that you are doing well, since my computer is so old I don’t plan on upgrading to OS 5, but thank you for your tips.

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2 Miraz Jordan Thu 12 February 2009 at 07:48:04: Hi Norbert, I *am* well, thank you.

I’m not sure what space you’re referring to. In the right-hand screenshot above the window shows the Search area at top right It has an icon of a magnifying glass at the left end of the search area.

That doesn’t have anything to do with Google though – instead it searches the computer (not the whole Internet).

Above the Search box is the small button to expand and collapse the Toolbars. That button has been in Mac OS X for a long time – perhaps always.

Does that help?

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3 Rajnikant Dubey Thu 30 April 2009 at 23:57:09: hi,

I want find bar to appear before status bar whenever I press Control-F in IE6. It was coming earlier but I lost this function two days back.

thanks

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4 Miraz Jordan Fri 01 May 2009 at 08:33:37: Hi Rajnikant,

since IE 6 only runs on Windows and this is a *Mac* Tips site, you’re looking in the wrong place for answers.

Try Google.

Cheers,

Miraz

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5 Denis J Wed 23 September 2009 at 12:58:30: Thank you , fantastic, it only took 2 clicks ,( Jellybean in Finder Window )
Great work….

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6 Phil Mon 21 December 2009 at 05:17:06: I know that this may have nothing related but, i got my mac yesterday, and I was wondering how you set the op bar to always show, no matter what. Like hen I pull up World of Warcraft, it doesn’t show anything, and I cant get to my home screen without exiting the game. Halp?

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7 Miraz Mon 21 December 2009 at 16:22:20: Phil, I don’t have World of Warcraft, but if I understand correctly, you’re saying WoW takes over the screen and then you can’t see the Dock or use Command Tab to switch between applications.

The game Bookworm that I play does the same thing.

Some apps just do that – they take over the whole screen. I don’t know of any way around it, I’m afraid.

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8 Eddie Tue 19 January 2010 at 10:29:25: I do not have a jellybean top right, just the SPOTLIGHT icon. Cannot find help to locate jelly bean. Any ideas appreciated

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9 Eddie Tue 19 January 2010 at 10:43:46: Perseverence worked …so to extend the instructions, I would add ” Open the Finder and select File, New Window. This screen displays a Grey Jellybean on the top right corner….”

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10 Miraz Jordan Tue 19 January 2010 at 12:17:23: Thanks for that feedback Eddie. It makes this Tip more useful. :-)

I’d edit your excellent suggestion slightly to read:

Open the Finder and select File, New Window. The window displays a Grey Jellybean on the top right corner….

(I’ve changed ’screen’ to ‘window’.)

Reply