ARCHIVED: In Mac OS and Mac OS X, what are spring-loaded folders?
Spring-loaded folders are a feature of the Finder that allow you to move through a hierarchical listing of folders with greater ease. They are especially useful if you wish to move a file, application, or even another folder, into a folder deeply nested within several
other folders. For example, you could use the feature to quickly move
an Adobe Photoshop plug-in into the
Plug-ins
folder, which is nested within the
Adobe Photoshop
folder, which in turn is nested within the
Applications
folder, which is at the top level of your
hard disk. Below is an example of how to move a
Photoshop plug-in to the Plug-ins
folder:
- Click and drag the plug-in's icon over the hard disk icon, but do not release the mouse button. The hard disk's icon will flash and then open.
- Again, without releasing the mouse button, move
the mouse pointer over the
Applications
folder. TheApplications
folder will open. - Repeat the process with the
Adobe Photoshop
folder andPlug-ins
folder. - When the
Plug-ins
folder opens, release the mouse button; the plug-in will be moved into that folder. Also, the higher level folders will all close, leaving thePlug-ins
folder as the only open window within that folder hierarchy.
Use similar steps to move other files into different folders. If
you mistakenly open the wrong folder (for example, you opened the
Adobe Reader
folder instead of the Adobe Photoshop
folder), you can close it by moving your mouse pointer out of the
open window back into a parent window. Or, to close all nested
folders, move the pointer so it is not over any window.
To modify how spring-loaded folders work, from the Finder's
menu, select . To turn spring-loaded folders on or off, next to , check the box. Here you can also change how long the folders delay before springing open.
This is document aehp in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2018-01-18 12:20:36.