If I click on the large-font path, or anywhere to either side of it, and drag, the window drags as usual. But if I click on the small-font path and drag, the window disappears and I find I’m dragging a miniaturised, semi-transparent version of the window, which expands to full size when I let go.
It’s vaguely disconcerting. Does it serve some useful purpose? I confess I’m not terribly sure why the small-font path is there at all. (The black icon is NameMangler, which I don’t think is relevant.)
That small text is actually the tab-bar. If the window has multiple tabs (you can type CMD-T to create some), then the visuals will make more sense.
When you drag the text at the top, you are moving the window.
When you drag the smaller text, you are dragging the tab. You can rearrange the tab order by dragging it next to the other tabs in the window. You can move the tab to another Finder window by dropping it on one. And you can create a new window from the tab by dropping it somewhere that’s not over another Finder window.
If you don’t work with tabs and don’t want them wasting screen space, you can turn off the tab bar from the menu (View → Hide Tab Bar).
I’ve never seen the tab bar in a Finder window if it contained only one tab. On my Macs, the tab bar only appears once I open a second tab. When I close additional tabs so there’s only one left, the tab bar automatically disappears. Actually, for me the exact functionality I’d expect and want.
Is there any chance you mistakenly hit cmd-shift-t while in Finder? That would have turned it on even if you had onloy one tab displaying.
I believe that whether the tab bar is always present is controlled by the ‘Show/Hide Tab Bar’ item in the Finder’s view menu. The item is actually only active when there the window has no tabs. When multiple tabs are available, the menu option shows as a dimmed ‘Hide Tab Bar’ and is not selectable.
Alan is right. If View → Show Tab Bar is selected, the tab bar is visible even if there is only one tab. Somehow, that’s what I’d managed to do, presumably (as Simon observes) by hitting cmd-shift-T.
Quite why you’d want to show the tab bar if there’s only one tab is another matter. I suppose the “+” icon to add a new tab is visible.
I always show tabs, because I often open a link in a new window, and then decide to add it to a different window. If the grabbie isn’t already there I’d have to add a new tab, move the real tab, then delete the empty tab I created just to move the real tab.
I sometimes use it to prevent the body of the screen from bouncing up and down when it transitions between one tab and two. If you find yourself in that situation often, it can be annoying.
That small text is actually the tab-bar. If the window has multiple tabs (you can type CMD-T to create some), then the visuals will make more sense.
When you drag the text at the top, you are moving the window.
Additionally, you can drag the folder icon (called the proxy icon) at the left of the text at the top; that folder corresponds to the currently opened tab. This is very useful to move/copy that folder, or - something I do all the time - to navigate directly to that folder from within an open/save dialog, or to copy to a terminal the path to that folder.
I have set the following defaults:
# Remove the proxy icon hover delay in Big Sur
defaults write -g NSToolbarTitleViewRolloverDelay -float 0
# Show Path Bar in the finder window
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowPathbar -bool true
