10 Uses For Mac Finder Aliases

Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some uses for aliases in the Mac Finder. So aliases are something you can create in the Finder that look like files but what they actually are are links to other files. Let's look at how to create aliases. Here I am in the Finder and I'm looking in my documents folder. Let's look in this business folder here and I've got a file I can create an alias to that file many different ways. One is to simply select the file and go to file and then make alias. You could also control click right click or two finger click on the file to bring up the context menu and you'll find make alias there as well. When you use either one of these it makes an alias file right next to the original just with the word alias appended to the end. If we switch to icon view we can clearly see that the original file here has a nice icon reflecting the contents of the file. The alias uses the default icon for that file type and also this little curved arrow at the bottom left corner. That's an indicator that tells you that this is an alias. Another way to create an alias is to drag the file from one location to another and then hold both the option and command key at the same time and notice here how you get that same little curved arrow as the pointer. It changes that to let you know that you're now making an alias not moving or copying the file while the original file remains at its original location. It doesn't move and this is the first use for an alias that I want to share with you. That's to place an alias to a file on your desktop. To get to this file normally I would have to go into my documents folder and then into this business folder and then find the file there. But if this is a file that I'm using all the time all day I may want to have easy access to it on the desktop but I don't want to have the file itself on the desktop. The file itself belongs in my organizational structure in this folder I've named business. The alias allows me to access that file while keeping the file itself in the proper place. Now a quick tip here if you ever have an alias and you want to go back to its original location and you don't remember where that is you can bring up the context menu with control click right click or two finger click and choose show original. You can also select it and then use file and then show original here and notice the keyboard shortcut is command r so selecting it and using command r will open up a finder window and not only take you to that location but select that file. And also remember this is a link to the file not the file itself. This is the file this is the alias that links to it so you can delete the alias and it doesn't affect the original file at all. That means you're free to create aliases just temporarily. If you need to access the file a lot today for instance you can create an alias to it on the desktop just for today or for this week and then don't feel you need to keep it around or only create an alias if you think you're going to need it permanently. Just create aliases and remove aliases as needed. Another tip is you can select an alias and use command i for get info or command option i to show inspector and you'll see here the location of the original. You'll also be able to select new original so you could use that to update an alias to use a more recent version of a file. If you find these videos valuable consider joining the more than 2,000 others that support MacMost through Patreon. You get exclusive content, course discounts, and more. You can read about it at macmost.com slash patreon. Now another reason you may want to create an alias is if you want the same file to appear to be in two places just for convenience. So for instance I'm going to go into this projects folder here and I've got three projects here. I also have a very important file that applies to all three of those team overview. I can use option command and create an alias and put that same alias in all three places. So if I happen to be in project alpha I have quick access to my team overview file but if I go to project beta I also have access to that team overview file. All three aliases are pointing to the same file I just have them in each of these project folders for convenience. You can have as many aliases to the same file as you want. Now you can also have aliases to folders. This could be useful if you've got a folder that's really deep down like here under business I've got files and then I've got folders for each year. Let's say if I want easy access to this without having to dig all the way down here. So what I can do is I can create an alias for this folder. Let's go ahead and just use file and make alias and then I'm going to drag this up to the top level here. So now I have a way to get directly to this folder but without having to dig down and find it. I could also put this here on the desktop if I like and then there's a quick way to get right to that folder. Now placing an alias like this on the desktop is very useful as a drag and drop aid. So with the alias there I could be somewhere else and decide I want something to be in this folder. I don't have to drag it to another finder window or change the location of this window with keyboard shortcuts and that kind of thing. I can just drag to the alias and I can drop something in there and it will end up in that folder. You can get really creative with this. For instance I can create a new folder here on the desktop and I can call it drop zones and then I can put aliases inside that folder. So for instance I will create an alias to this and drag and drop it in there just holding option and command to create these. So I'll do another one here and another one here and now when I look in this folder I've got three aliases in there. If I wanted to drag and drop something to one of those folders I could drag it to the folder, wait a second for it to open and then drop that file there. You can also use aliases to help you file things. So for instance let's go to the downloads folder here and let's say you download a lot of stuff. You can create aliases in the downloads folder to other folders. So for instance I can use option and command and create an alias in my downloads folder directly to business. I can also do the same thing for this pdfs folder here and maybe the receipts folder here. So now as I get items in my downloads folder I don't have to have a second window open to file them. I can easily drag and drop each of these into the folder where it belongs by using these aliases. And this example just uses the downloads folder but you could have a filing system like this elsewhere as well. Another interesting aspect of aliases is that they don't have to have the same name as the original. You can change name to whatever you want. So let's open this business folder here and you can see I've got a bunch of documents called tax info. Let's say I create an alias to this taxinfo.numbers file here and I'm going to save that at the top level. So I'll hold the option and command key down and create an alias here that's at the top level. There's taxinfo an alias to that numbers file. I can now rename that file just press return to do that and actually do a command a to select the entire thing. I don't need to have the extension there and I could call this current taxinfo and now this alias has that name yet when I double click it to open you could see it opens up that specific file which means that next year I can delete this alias and create a new one to taxinfo for that year name it the same thing and I can get used to knowing that current taxinfo is an alias to this year's taxinfo file and before I showed you how to use command i and select a new original so you can use that to assign the same alias to a new version of the file for a new year. You can also use aliases to gather together various files as a collection while leaving the actual files in place. So I'm going to create a new folder here in my documents folder and call this daily checks things I need to check every day and what I can do then is I can gather together aliases for various things like for instance this file here and I will drag and drop into daily checks with the option and command key held down to create an alias to it but I could also go ahead and say create an alias to this file in there and then maybe an alias to this file in there and now I've got this one folder and I've gathered together these three files that all belong in their own folders. I don't want them together but I now have a different way to reference them using this folder here with aliases inside it. Now another use for this is to actually combine that idea with the dock. You can gather together aliases to various different folders and then drag this folder which is a regular folder drag it to the right side of the dock and drop it in there. Then you can control click right click or two finger click on that dock icon there and you can change the sort by here how it's displayed I'll change it to be a folder and how it's viewed so I'll change it for instance to grid and now when I click on it I can see those three files there even though they don't exist in a folder together the aliases to them do but the great thing is I don't have to mess with the dock anymore to update this. I can go and create another alias add that to this daily checks folder or whatever you want to call it and now when I check in the dock again you can see that one's there as well and you can use that same concept to gather together apps. The dock of course has all of these icons for various apps but let's say you wanted to have a group of apps together and have them accessed through one icon in the dock. So here in your documents folder somewhere else in your home folder create a new folder here I'm going to call this one graphics apps and what I'm going to do with this is I'm going to drag and drop applications so I'm going to go in this other finder window to applications so I'm going to drag and drop applications into this and notice how the finder assumes if I'm dragging an application that they don't actually want to move the application I'm going to create an alias I'm not actually holding option and command down it will just create an alias automatically so I can add an alias to that app in this folder I can add an alias to this app in the folder this one this one and any others that I want in here and you can see I've got these aliases while the applications remain in the applications folder then I can take this graphics apps folder here drag this to the right side of the dock and I can customize it as I like I'll set this one up as a fan and now I can click and then choose an application to launch I've got these five applications just contained in this one folder here so it's great for organizing your apps so my final suggestion is to use aliases as an easier way to connect to a location on an external server or another mac on your network so for instance here if I wanted to connect to my macbook air from a mac studio I would use go and then say connect to server command k works browse then I could find there's the macbook air I can go into the home folder there local documents and let's say this is a folder I commonly want to access from this mac I could drag it say to the desktop it will copy the folder there but if I hold option and command down it creates an alias to it instead so now if I want to access that network location I don't have to go through all of that which would include actually connecting to the server if I wasn't already connected instead I just double click on this alias here and it opens it right up usually if you're not connected to the mac or server it will then do the connection so it may take a few seconds to do that and show you some progress dialogues and everything and then unfortunately sometimes it just doesn't work and you have to revert to doing the whole browse and connect to that mac but sometimes it does and when it does it saves you a lot of time it's a shame that doesn't seem to be very solid today because in years past it worked really well it still works often enough that you should have aliases like this to make it easier at least most of the time now I'm going to finish by pointing out that there are several other features of the finder that are like aliases but not exactly the same for instance you can just place folders directly in the dock they are kind of like aliases but they're just aliases that exist only in the dock here you could also do the same for specific files you can just place the file on the right side of the dock here to have access to that file also folders you place in the dock will work as drop zones as well in addition you've got the left sidebar here of the finder you can place folders here under favorites very easily and these will act as easy access to that location and as drop zones but note that you can't really put aliases here in the left sidebar the finder will actually let you but they don't work as drop zones as you would expect so they're not as useful the one last place that you could add something that's kind of like an alias is you can drag something by holding the command key down you have to have command held down first then you start dragging and then you could add a folder or a file in the toolbar of the finder it'll appear in all finder windows you can see it here and you can use it for easy access to a folder for easy access to a file by just clicking it and it also works as a drop zone when you have a folder up there so there's a lot you can do with aliases and alias like features in the finder to have easier access to your files folders easier drag and drop but without having to move files and folders out of your organizational structure hope you found this useful thanks for watching want to know about every new MacMost video each week sign up for the absolutely free MacMost email newsletter at macmost.com newsletter