OSX Finder Refresh

[Leon]

Note: Mac OSX 10.5.x “Leopard” may not need this - however some users have reported it still adds value. Apple seem to have made some changes in the way Leopard interacts with the file system making automatic refreshes far more instant.

 

A small but annoying thing about Mac OSX is that sometimes it doesn’t refresh itself when a file or folder is changed - especially when dealing with SMB (Windows) share drives.

 

In Windows you can hit F5 to refresh the current Window, but Apple seemed to have forgotten to add this feature to Mac OSX.

 

Well I searched the web and finally found an Applescript to do this which is here:

 

tell application “Finder”
tell front window
update every item with necessity
end tell
end tell

 

Now thats fine, but I wanted something that would tie into the Finder window. So I grabbed the refresh icon from a Firefox theme (GrApple) and made an Application Package in Script Editor. So here it is for people that want it:

 

Download: Finder-Refresh-1.4.zip

 

 

 

To install:

1. Unzip to your Applications Folder *

2. Open a Finder window.

3. Go to Applications and scroll to “Finder Refresh”

4. Left-click & drag Finder Refresh to the Finder window toolbar - you should see the other icons spread out.

5. Let go of the mouse button and there you go - should look like below.

 

* If your web browser auto-unzip’s (ie Safari) then “Finder Refresh” will be in your download directory so you can skip Step 1

 

 

From then on just click the button to refresh the currently open Finder window. It works for me, and now one small thing no longer annoys me.

 

Uninstallation:

To Remove from the Finder Window, Hold down the Command/Apple key, left click on the icon and drag off the Finder Window - you’ll see your mouse cursor turn into a cloud, at this point let go of your mouse button. Done!