Add custom folders to the iLife Media Browser

Jun 10, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: AFillbrandt

There are times when it would be nice to have your own folders in the Media Browser in iLife '08 applications. In the Media Browser, however, there is no apparent way to add folders, but with a little trick, you can do just that.

In the Finder, open whatever folder you want to add to the Media Browser. Then start an iLife application and show the Media Browser (View » Show Media Browser). Open the Pictures tab, then drag-and-drop the open folder from the Finder. It is important that you do not switch to the Finder -- just drag the folder from the background.

[robg adds: I wasn't aware that you could add folders to the Media Browser (and I searched here to make sure we haven't run it as a hint; if we have, I missed it). If you activate the Finder, the floating Media Browser will vanish, so you need to arrange your windows such that you can see both the target folder and the Media Browser when in the target application. Then you can drag from within the application, and the Finder won't come to the foreground.

When you add a folder of images, the Media Browser gains a new Folders folder -- this is where your dropped folder will be placed. Folders are tracked on a per-application basis, too, so you can have a different set of folders in Keynote than you do in Pages. To remove a folder, Control-click on it and you'll see a remove option; Control-click on the top-level Folders folder, and you can remove them all in one shot.

Finally, this trick also works in the media browser that appears in the sidebar of the Open dialog of compatible applications (ie Preview, TextEdit, etc.). As with the iLife apps, the folders you add are tracked on a per-application basis.]

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