In Mac OS and Mac OS X, the Finder is the primary way of accessing, organizing, and managing your files and applications. It is the essential tool for navigating and manipulating the Macintosh file system. The Finder automatically launches either at the end of the boot process or when you log into your account, and although you can hide it, under normal circumstances, you cannot deactivate it. To make the Finder the active application, click the desktop, click the Finder icon in the Dock (Mac OS X), or select it from the Application menu (Mac OS 9.x and earlier; the last icon on the right side of the menu bar).

The Finder has gone through many changes during the evolution of Mac OS and Mac OS X. Following are some of the highlights:

The original Finder could only manage one application at a time, but the MultiFinder (first introduced in System 4.2) could multitask several applications.

In System 6 and earlier, the Finder was not as tightly integrated into the system and could actually be turned off. In addition, the MultiFinder was optional.

In System 7.0, the MultiFinder replaced the original Finder, and Apple renamed it to Finder.

With Mac OS 7.5, Apple made the Finder scriptable via AppleScript.

In Mac OS 8, Apple created a multi-threaded Finder, which means that the Finder could do more than one task at a time (e.g., it can move a file to the Trash while it opens a folder). Apple also introduced the Simple Finder, which reduces menu options to a minimal, simplified set of choices that still enable most basic operations.

With the introduction of Mac OS X, Apple added a new hierarchical view, called Column View, which allows you to more easily see nested folders at a glance. In Column View, you can preview movies, pictures, and audio files.

Beginning with Mac OS X 10.2, Apple reintroduced spring-loaded folders, as well as the Classic Mac OS option of enabling the Simple Finder for user accounts which you specify. OS X 10.2 also saw the addition of the Finder toolbar, which contains icons you can click to quickly access your home directory, favorite items, applications folder, or the root level of the operating system.

Apple added several features in OS X 10.3, including network browsing, which allows you to browse to other computers on the network; the Finder window sidebar, modeled on the iTunes playlists concept, and which contains icons to quickly take you to other mounted media (e.g., CDs, DVDs, disk images, FireWire drives), other computers on your network, and folders on your computer which you may access frequently, such as your music, pictures, movies, or documents folders; Exposé, which provides elegant solutions for quickly locating one specific window no matter how cluttered the screen; and fast user switching, which allows you to switch easily between several accounts in OS X. You can also drag and drop files you'd like to burn onto a CD, then click the burn button in the Finder window for easy CD burning capability.

With the release of OS X 10.4, Apple introduced Spotlight, a dynamic new way of searching for files and information on your computer. Spotlight is available systemwide, so searches in the Finder can leverage this new technology to search through not only the filenames but also the file contents for the terms you type into the search field, continually refining the search as you type. The Finder now also features Smart Folders, which contain documents grouped together based on search criteria that you define instead of the physical location of the documents.
For more information about the Finder, or specific aspects of the Finder, such as Exposé, use Mac Help, which is available from the Help menu in the Finder.

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