New (annoying) Finder behavior (alt key)

[kriista1234]

This appears to be new in 14.3.1 and I can't seem to find out where to turn it off.

Basically when in mode3 (show as list) of a Finder window, if you press+hold the alt/opt key, it now pops up this little hovering "full path" thing near the bottom of the Finder window:

(pardon the photo of the screen, it's apparently impossible to screenshot this but you can see it along the bottom starting with "Macintosh HD > Users >" etc...)

What's annoying about this is that it blocks off a bunch of the files along the bottom of the window. Much more it pops up kind of slowly and takes a few seconds to go away.

Just this morning I've almost accidentally copied a whole top-level folder onto my desktop when trying to alt+drag a file onto my desktop from the Finder in this view.

Does anyone know how or where to turn off this annoying "feature"?

 

[bogdanw]

The easy fix would be to always show the Path Bar
Finder - View – Show Path Bar (⌥⌘P)
“Option-Command-P: Hide or show the path bar in Finder windows.” https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

 

[BrianBaughn]

What happens if you turn on Finder>View>Show Path Bar?

 

[kriista1234]

This definitely works in that it no longer pops up, but I prefer not having/seeing that all the time.

For now this is better than it jumping in the way every time I try to alt+drag a file near the bottom of the window.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The popup thing is definitely new behavior in Sonoma.

You're not really in "Show as List" mode…are you?

 

[kriista1234]

I'm in whatever the 3rd one is called (command+3) as you can see in the pic along the top bar.

I've used this as my default finder view for 10+ years (I enjoy arrow right/left-ing through hierarchy).

Pretty sure this is new as of 14.3.1 as I hadn't experienced this until updating a couple days ago.

 

[bogdanw]

I always have Show Path Bar, but if I hide it I see the same behaviour when pressing ⌥ in Monterey 12.7.3.

I’ve looked into Finder’s plist (com.apple.finder) in Sonoma 14.3.1 and Monterey 12.7.3. There is only one value related to the Path Bar: ShowPathbar 0 or 1 (hide or show).

 

[kriista1234]

It looks like holding alt in any of the Finder views will either show/hide the pathbar based on whether it is showing or not, with no (apparent) option to disable the behavior.

 

[galad]

That's been here for a few years already.

 

[kriista1234]

Maybe they decreased the delay time before it popping up or something? I've never almost accidentally dragged my User folder to the desktop before today, and it's happened a few times.

 

[BrianBaughn]

To clarify…it's the macOS Option key that does this. Not sure how the behavior has changed over macOS changes.

I have Show Path Bar "ON" but use the Finder in list view. In column view it's not as "helpful" as you can see the path in the window (mostly) so I can understand how having it at the bottom permanently isn't much help.