Fix missing metadata display in Finder Icon View

Sep 17, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: tokai

In Finder's View Options the option 'Show item info' (Cmd+J) can be enabled if you are in Icon View mode, and if enabled additional item metadata information is shown below the icon labels, e.g. number of items inside a folder, the running time of a music file or the dimensions in pixels of an image file. This option is stored on a folder-by-folder basis, just like the view is.

In case the extended metadata for images or music files does not show up — even with the 'Show item info' option enabled — the reason for this is simple: Finder uses Spotlight to gather this information; so to gather the missing metadata for display Spotlight simply must be enabled for the volume, or the index may need to be rebuilt.

To rebuild the index, open up the Spotlight system preference, and click on the Privacy tab, click the plus button, and add the volume you want to reindex. Wait a few minutes, then select the volume in the privacy area, and click the minus button to remove it. Spotlight will re-index the volume.

[crarko adds: The metadata displayed as expected when I tried it, so I didn't need to re-index anything. It's one of the few reasons I can think of to use Icon View any more.]

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