Folders at top of "list"?

topdotter · Dec 1, 2009

Aliases come before folders

I think that those that always appear before everything else are aliases/shortcuts or whatever they're called in OSX. I too am looking for a solution to this but I think this at least answers WHY they're doing what they're currently doing.

spaull · Jul 20, 2010

Hey man,

I had the same problem. I switched over to a mac and couldn't get the folders on top no matter which way i arranged the files.

I've had a look on other forums, and I've only found one easy way to fix this:

Open Terminal and paste the following into it:

sudo vi /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings

then
-type in your password if you need to
-type 'a' (this allows you to edit)
-edit so line 7 reads
"Folder" = " Folder";
(there's a space before the second 'Folder')
-press escape
-type ':w' to write the changes (you may need to write ':!w' instead if it's read only)
-type ':q' to quit

Then reopen Finder and it should be fine - I tried everything else and this was the only thing that actually worked

Good luck

NinaSpeedie · Sep 17, 2010

I am so new to this. Can you help me?

spaull said:
Hey man,

I had the same problem. I switched over to a mac and couldn't get the folders on top no matter which way i arranged the files.

I've had a look on other forums, and I've only found one easy way to fix this:

Open Terminal and paste the following into it:

sudo vi /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings

then
-type in your password if you need to
-type 'a' (this allows you to edit)
-edit so line 7 reads
"Folder" = " Folder";
(there's a space before the second 'Folder')
-press escape
-type ':w' to write the changes (you may need to write ':!w' instead if it's read only)
-type ':q' to quit

Then reopen Finder and it should be fine - I tried everything else and this was the only thing that actually worked

Good luck

You sound as though you know what you are doing. I have had a problem for ages - when I save a new file into a folder, the icon always goes way down and I have to scroll to retrieve it and move it up, or go to view and re arrange again (icons and date modified). How can I stop this happening?

Lifeisabeach · Sep 17, 2010

eric said:
well then, my mac must be magic because it works perfectly fine for me.

Sorry Eric, but you are dead wrong on this. If the folder contains a mixture of folders and file types, then any file types with extensions starting with the letters A through E will appear in list view (sorting by "Kind") before the folders. Those with G through Z will appear after the folders. This was a gripe of mine actually several years ago when I first started dabbling in OS X.

Lifeisabeach · Sep 17, 2010

spaull said:
Hey man,

I had the same problem. I switched over to a mac and couldn't get the folders on top no matter which way i arranged the files.

I've had a look on other forums, and I've only found one easy way to fix this:

Open Terminal and paste the following into it:

sudo vi /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings

then
-type in your password if you need to
-type 'a' (this allows you to edit)
-edit so line 7 reads
"Folder" = " Folder";
(there's a space before the second 'Folder')
-press escape
-type ':w' to write the changes (you may need to write ':!w' instead if it's read only)
-type ':q' to quit

Then reopen Finder and it should be fine - I tried everything else and this was the only thing that actually worked

Good luck

That is an awesome tip and I can confirm it works. I don't even see a downside to it (strings like these are designed to be safely modified in just this manner). It does bear mentioning that one is editing a core system file, but done correctly as instructed, it solves the problem.

toMACsh · Sep 17, 2010

lifeisabeach said:
Sorry Eric, but you are dead wrong on this.

Eric's post was in 2007

Lifeisabeach · Sep 17, 2010

toMACsh said:
Eric's post was in 2007

Huh? What? Oh I HATE it when people recycle threads like this. Geez Marie… looks like it's been recycled 3 times already. Well nonetheless… he was wrong in 2007 too. The problem with being unable to sort folders on top has been a gripe of mine since I first dabbled in OS X starting with 10.2. Actually I'm glad this thread got recycled since a workaround has been posted.