In fact, the easiest way to open Finder is to click its icon in your dock, which looks like a smiling blue face.Īfter clicking, you’ll see “Finder” in the upper-left corner of the screen, and a Finder window will open. You can’t delete it, and it’s always available on your Dock. RELATED: Deja Vu: A Brief History of Every Mac CPU Architecture How to Use Finderįinder is an app on your Mac, but one with special status and privileges in macOS. Horn and others developed the Finder into something similar to what we know today, but it has changed dramatically over time to fit new architectures and operating systems. Its precursor on the Apple Lisa, Filer, sported a similar-sounding name with a similar purpose: to help you organize files and launch programs with a graphical, mouse-based interface. Early Finder co-author Bruce Horn speculates that Finder got its name because it’s used to find documents. The Macintosh Finder originated early in the development of the Macintosh, first named by Bud Tribble.

It’s generally equivalent to File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) on Windows. It also helps you launch applications and connect to network resources. It allows you to move, copy, and delete files. Finder Is How You Interact with Files on a Macįinder is the basic way that you interact with the file system on your Mac.

What is mac computer finder