10.4: Get Info / Inspector usage on multiple files

May 04, '05 08:48:00AM

Contributed by: WhiteHawk77

Tiger only hintIn Mac OS 10.3, if you wanted to view the total amount of disk space that a selection of files used, all you had to do was select those files and do a Get Info. The Get Info window that came up would give you the total for all files you'd selected. If you do the same in 10.4, it will give you separate Get Info windows for each and every file, and so you will not have a display of the total.

Instead, select all the files and then Control-click to bring up the contextual menu. Now holding down the Option (Alt) key changes 'Open With' to 'Always Open With' and 'Get Info' changes to 'Show Inspector.' Choose Show Inspector, and it will give you the Get Info window for the total of all the selected files.

[robg adds: The fast way to get the Inspector is to just hit Command-Option-I with the files selected. It does appear, though, that the behavior of Get Info/Inspector has indeed changed (again!) with 10.4. I verified that 10.3's Get Info is for the combined selected files, whereas 10.4 brings up separate boxes unless you use the Inspector. I think this is a good change, as it makes it easier (for instance) to compare a bunch of files quickly, when each is in its own box ... and since the Inspector still works for the aggregate, no functionality is lost.]

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