When you upgrade to OSX 10.7 Lion, two new Finder features make it easier to find your documents – All My Files, and Arrange By. In combination, I can rearrange my files and folders to locate just what I need.

When you open up a new Finder window (click on the blue guy on the left side of your Dock), look at the left sidebar. You’ll see a new item at the top: All My Files. When you click on it, you see a list of every file you created on your computer. It brings all the documents together, no matter what subfolder you have them stored in.

The new Arrange By button allows you to regroup the files on the fly. You can group them by the date you opened them, so that all of Today’s files are at top – handy!

You can group them by the Application that made them, so all your Word documents are together, or your Mail messages.

You can also arrange them by the type of file – all your emails, pdfs, and jpgs will be grouped.

Use a 2-finger slide from right to left to skim through the files, or use your mouse to drag.

Once you have the Arrange By set, you can hold down your Option key and click on the Action button, with the gear on it. Look for Sort, and then choose a subgrouping. For example, once you use Arrange By to group your files by Kind, you can then Sort them by Date Last Opened, so that the newest items are on the left.

Note that this won’t work for all of the Arrange options – if you have them Arranged By Date Last Opened, or by Name, there are no further sorts you can do.

I have found that using All My Files Arranged By Date Modified has been handiest – that way, whatever I’m working on is always right on top!

Did you know there’s more than one photo management tool on your computer? In addition to iPhoto, Image Capture is a little program in your Applications folder that has big power.

Image Capture controls what happens when you connect your iPhone, iPad, and digital camera to your computer. For example, you’ve noticed that iPhoto always opens as soon as you plug in your iPhone. This action is actually managed in Image Capture, NOT iPhoto!

Image Capture also allows you to use your scanner without any other software.

So let’s explore this wonderful little program. Go ahead and open up Image Capture now. Then, plug in your camera, iPhone, or iPad with pictures on it.

In the upper left corner (1), you can see your scanner and any other cameras or devices you have plugged into your computer. Click on each one to access its tools. Here you can use your scanner, even if you don’t have the original software!

In the lower left corner (2) is a CRUCIAL place to set what happens when you plug anything into your computer. If you find it annoying when iPhoto opens every time you plug in your iPhone, change this drop-down to None!

I used this setting to troubleshoot a problem with iPhoto. I had a customer whose iPhoto ’11 was hanging up every time she opened it – the spinning beach ball wouldn’t stop, and she had to Force Quit the application every time. I changed the setting from “None” to “iPhoto”, and the problem was solved!

The option at the bottom (3) is set when you use Image Capture as your import utility. It gives you MUCH more flexibility than iPhoto, or any other method of importing your pictures into your computer. Here you can tell it to import your pictures into a folder, iPhoto, Aperture, Preview, or even Mail. You can also assign any other application, such as Photoshop.

Opening Pages in Windows

If you have a document you made in iWork’s Pages, and all you have is a PC at school or work, use this trick to open the file as a PDF.

First, save the file to your PC’s desktop.

Next, right-click on the file and choose “Rename.”

Add “.zip” to the end of the filename, and press Enter.

Last, open the zipped folder and view contents. You’ll see a file with the extension .pdf – you’ve just created a PDF of your document!

While you still won’t be able to edit the document, you can view it, and even use Adobe Acrobat to convert it to a Word document.

When you open up a Finder window (poke Max, the little blue guy on the left of your Dock, in the nose) and look at the blue sidebar, have you ever noticed the six items at the very bottom left? (1)
There are “Search For” folders down there! You can click on them to instantly return to your recently activities.

Click on “Today”, and you’ll see all the applications, files, emails, and everything else you’ve worked with today.

Click on “Yesterday”, and see everything you touched yesterday. “Past Week” will show you all the items you activated over the last seven days.

Below that are 3 purple folders with gears on them. These are Smart Folders. They’re not real locations on your computer; they’re Searches that gather items that match a particular criteria. Be careful with the items you see when you click on a purple Smart Folder – anything you do here will affect the genuine source file. For example, if you delete them, they will be gone from your computer entirely!

If you click on “All Images”, you can see in one place all the photos on your computer, no matter what folder they’re in. Note that this will also include your iPhoto pictures. By using this All Images folder, you can quickly skim through your photos to find the one you need. I do NOT recommend deleting photos from here, though – do that from inside your iPhoto so that you don’t create holes in your albums!

“All Movies” will search your computer for any movies from your iPhoto, iMovie, Movie folder, and email.

“All Documents” will show you everything in your Documents folder and other locations, no matter how deeply it’s buried. If you’ve been using your computer for a very long time, especially in business, this folder may work very slowly.

You can create your own folders, too. After you do a search in the oval in the upper right corner of the Finder window (2), you can see your search criteria at the top of the listings. On the left you can choose your entire computer, or just the last folder you clicked on (3). On the right, you can select whether you want to search the entire contents of the file, or just its name. That helps narrow down the search results.

You can also add additional criteria by clicking the tiny + on the far right of the criteria bar (4). It will insert a new row where you can choose your next set of rules. For example, maybe you only want Word documents, or files from a certain date. Every time you add a criteria, you’ll narrow down your results.

If you’d like to reuse that exact search in the future, click the Save button (5). Give it a descriptive name, but don’t change the location. It will save as a new purple Smart Folder at the bottom of the Finder Sidebar (1). Then all you have to do is click on the folder any time to find the files you’re looking for!