This article explains how to show the Mac Finder Path Bar.Information in this article applies to macOS Catalina (10.15) through OS X (10.5) Leopard.
The Finder Path Bar is disabled by default, but it only takes a few seconds to enable it.
Start by opening a Finder window on your Mac.An easy way to do this is to click the Finder icon in the Dock.
With a Finder window open, selectShow Path Barfrom theViewmenu.
The Path Bar displays at the bottom of all your Finder windows showing the path to any fileorfolder you choose.
The Finder Path Bar is a small pane located at the bottom of a Finder window, just below where files and folders are listed.The Path Bar shows you the path from the folder you're currently viewing to the top of the file system.To put it another way, it shows you the path you created when you clicked through the Finder to get to the current folder.
If you decide you prefer the more minimalistic Finder window, you can turn the Path Bar off just as quickly as you turned it on.
Open a Finder window.
SelectHide Path Bar from the Viewmenu.
The Path Bar disappears.
In addition to its obvious use as a road map showing where you've been and how you got from there to here, the Path Bar also serves other handy functions.
The Path Bar is handy, but there are other ways to display the path to an item. One method is to add the Path icon to the Finder's toolbar by selectingViewin the Finder menu bar and choosingCustomize Toolbar.
Drag the Path icon to the top of the Finder window.
The Path icon displays the path to the currently selected item much as the Path Bar does. The difference is that the Path Bar shows the path in a horizontal format, while the Path icon uses a vertical format. The other difference is that the Path button only displays the path when the button is clicked.
The final method for showing the path to an item within a Finder window makes use of the Finder's title bar and its proxy icon. The Finder's proxy icon can already display a path. All you need to do is right-click the icon. This path uses a series of icons to show the path to the current Finder window. However, with a bit of Terminal magic, you can change the Finder's title bar and its proxy icon to display the true pathname, not a bunch of icons. For example, if you have a Finder window open on your Downloads folder, the standard proxy icon is a folder icon with the name "Downloads." After using this Terminal trick, the Finder instead displays a small folder icon followed by /Users/YourUserName/Downloads.
To enable the Finder's title bar to display the long pathname, do the following:
LaunchTerminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
At the Terminal command prompt, enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
You can triple-click the Terminal command here to select the entire line of text and then copy/paste the line into your Terminal window.
PressEnter or Return.
At the Terminal prompt, enter:
killall Finder
PressEnter or Return.
The Finder restarts, after which any Finder window displays the long pathname to the current location of a folder.
If you decide you don't like the Finder always displaying the long pathname, you can turn the feature off with the following Terminal commands:
At the Terminal command prompt, enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool false
PressEnter or Return.
At the Terminal prompt, enter:
killall Finder
PressEnter or Return.
The Finder Path Bar and the related path features of the Finder can be a handy shortcut when working with files and folders. Give this nifty hidden feature a try.
FAQYour Mac's Finder (sometimes referred to as a Desktop) is what you see by default when you first start up your computer. When you're in the Finder you'll seeFinderin the top-left corner of the screen next to the Apple icon, as well as the Finder Bar at the bottom of the screen.
Force an unresponsive Finder to quit by selecting theApple iconin the top-left, then selectingForce Quit. Or pressCommand + Option + Escto open the Force Quit Applications menu, then selectFinder>Relaunch.