OS X El Capitan: The Missing Manual

The Preview Pane

The real magic of Cover Flow and column views has always been the instant previews of what’s in each file you highlight. The words in a Word file, the image in a JPEG photo, the numbers in an Excel spreadsheet—you can see them without actually having to double-click an icon. In Cover Flow view, the preview image appears above the list of files (Figure 1-23); in column view, it appears in the rightmost column.

But what about icon and list views? They have charms of their own; don’t they deserve some kind of preview column, too? Now they have one. You can now choose View→Show Preview (or press Shift-⌘-P) in any of the Finder’s four window views—and you get a full-height preview pane at the right side of the window (Figure 1-24). (To turn off the new pane, choose View→Hide Preview.)

Figure 1-24. You can make this preview pane appear in any Finder window, no matter what view it’s in. It shows both the contents of the selected file and some handy details about it, like its dimensions, size, and creation date.