Copy paths from the Finder

Need to copy a path to give someone instructions or tell them where to put something? Here are some ways to do it.

Macworld | Mac OS X Hints | Copy paths from Finder selections:

First, you can use the Services menu. In both 10.4 and 10.5, the Services menu works in the Finder. With the object whose path you’d like to capture selected in the Finder, choose Finder -> Services -> TextEdit -> New Window from Selection. A new TextEdit window will appear containing the full path to the selected item. Press Command-A to select it all, then Command-C to place it on the clipboard.

Another option is dragging the object from the Finder and dropping it into a TextEdit window (or a Terminal window). This will only work if your TextEdit document is in plain text mode—if you use rich text mode and drag in something TextEdit can open, such as a JPEG image file, the file will be opened. But with TextEdit set to plain text mode, you’ll instead see the path to the file or folder. Again, just select it and copy it to the clipboard, and you’re done. (Some third-party text editors support this feature as well; it works with Smultron on my machine, for instance.)

You can also copy any item (file or folder) in the Finder and paste it into Terminal. You’ll see the path on the command line; you can then select it with the mouse and copy it. You can also press Command-Space, then drag-and-drop the file into the Spotlight search box. Finally, you can drag a Finder window’s proxy icon—the small icon in the title bar of the window—into TextEdit (again, in plain text mode) to see the path to that folder. Select the path and copy it to your clipboard.

Can't open trash? Try this...

If you click on the Trash icon in the Dock and nothing happens, try quitting the Finder and restarting it.

Open VISE get Script Editor?

This was a new one for me. Double-clicking a VISE Installer application opened the Script Editor. I did a quick Google search and found this Mac NN:

Installer VISE Installers?

None of their suggestions worked for me, but I discovered something simple. I just added the extension ".app" to the file using Get Info from the Finder! Problem solved.

Can't hide .app in application bundle?

Why is ".app" in the filename? [Archive] - MacNN Forums: ""

If you run into this problem, check to see if there are extra "." in the filename other than the one preceding "app." This can cause the Finder not to hide the .app extension.

Crashing Finder on Find

If you discover the Finder crashing when you type in the little search box in the upper right corner of any Finder dialog box, it likely means you need to rebuild your Launch Services database, which is separate for each user. In most cases, Spotlight still functions, but Finder finding doesn't.

Notice lines 2-5 in the crash report: Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001) Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x70586e60 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 ...ple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 0x90b99530 CSStoreGetUnit + 56 1 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x91936754 _LSBindingListGetEntryWithClass + 44 2 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x9193667c _UTTypeSearchConformsToTypesCore + 92 3 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x919365ec _UTTypeSearchConformsToTypes + 64 4 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x91936588 _UTTypeConformsTo + 56 5 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x9193ee80 UTTypeConformsTo + 228 6 com.apple.finder 0x002734fc dyld_stub_OpenADefaultComponent + 504460 7 com.apple.finder 0x001c9398 0x1000 + 1868696 8 com.apple.finder 0x001cab64 0x1000 + 1874788

No Unlock-a D' Folder

I just had a unique issue pop-up regarding locked folders. A folder inside my applications folder was suddenly locked for some inexplicable reason. I only discovered this when SuperDuper was trying to back it up to a sparseimage and failed with an error at that folder. So I did what most people do when they have any of a plethora of OS X problems that aren’t covered by the usual troubleshooting tricks--go to Google. This led me to Apple’s Support site, where I found this article and attempted these steps below: If the item you are trying to unlock is a folder,use these steps:         1.        Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities).         2.        Type this, followed by a space: sudo chflags nouchg         3.        Drag the folder you would like to unlock into the Terminal window.         4.        Press Return.         5.        Enter your password and press Return. If you have attempted to unlock a file in the Finder but it is still locked, follow these steps to remove the system immutable bit from affected files, which can cause this issue. Mac OS X 10.4 or later 1. Start in single-user mode 2. Type this, followed by Return: mount -uw / 3. Type this, followed by Return: 
/usr/libexec/register_mach_bootstrap_servers /etc/mach_init.d 4. Type this, followed by Return: autodiskmount 5. Type this, followed by Return: 
find / -flags schg -exec chflags noschg {} \; 6. Once this is finished, type this followed by Return: reboot Of course, the first set of instructions designed for a folder didn’t do the trick. But I booted single-user and typed in the long commands for fixing files, and this did do the trick!