Finder on your Mac
Represented by the blue icon with the smiling face, the Finder is the home base for your Mac. You use it to organize and access almost everything on your Mac, including documents, images, movies, and any other files you have. To open a Finder window, click the Finder icon 
in the Dock at the bottom of the screen.
Get organized. Your Mac has folders already created for common types of content—Documents, Pictures, Applications, Music, and more. As you create documents, install apps, and do other work, you can create new folders to stay organized. To create a new folder, choose File > New Folder. See Organize files in folders on Mac in the macOS User Guide.
Sync devices. When you connect a device like an iPhone or iPad, it appears in the Finder sidebar. Click the device’s name to see options to back up, update, sync, and restore your device.
The Finder sidebar. The sidebar on the left shows the items you use often or want to open quickly. To see all your documents stored on iCloud Drive, click the iCloud Drive folder in the sidebar. To see only the documents that you’re sharing and that are shared with you, click the Shared folder. To change what’s shown in the sidebar, choose Finder > Settings.
Change how you view files and folders. Click the pop-up menu button at the top of the Finder window to change how you view documents and folders. View them as icons 
, in a list 
, in hierarchical columns 
, or in a gallery 
. Both Gallery View and Column view show a large preview of your selected file, so you can visually identify your images, video clips, and other documents. You can also make quick adjustments, like rotating or marking up an image. To show the Preview pane options in the Finder, choose View > Show Preview. To customize what’s shown, choose View > Show Preview Options, then select the options for your file type.
Tip: To show filenames in Gallery View, press Command-J and select “Show filename.”
To learn more about the different view options, see Change how folders are displayed in the Finder in the macOS User Guide.
Quick Actions. In Gallery View or Column View, click the More button 
at the bottom right of the Finder window for shortcuts to manage and edit files directly in the Finder. You can rotate an image, annotate or crop an image in Markup, combine images and PDFs into a single file, trim audio and video files, run shortcuts created with the Shortcuts app, and create custom actions through Automator workflows (for example, watermarking a file). See Perform quick actions in the Finder on Mac in the macOS User Guide.
Quick Look. Select a file and press the Space bar to open Quick Look. Use the buttons at the top of the Quick Look window to sign PDFs; trim audio and video files; and mark up, rotate, and crop images without opening a separate app. To learn more about Quick Look and markup features, see View and edit files with Quick Look on Mac and Mark up files on Mac in the macOS User Guide.
Tip: You can add alternative image descriptions that can be read by VoiceOver using Markup in Preview or Quick Look.
Get there faster. The Go menu in the Finder menu bar is a quick way to get to folders and locations. Instead of using several clicks to navigate to the Utilities folder, choose Go > Utilities. You can also choose Go > Enclosing Folder to return to the top level of nested folders. If you know the path to a specific folder, choose Go > Go to Folder, then type the path. See Go directly to a specific folder in the macOS User Guide.