Overview of Icon View Windows

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The Icon View Window: An Overview

Icon View windows appear when you open a folder icon. They display the files and directories that a particular directory contains. By default the contents are shown as icons. You can change the view in many ways, such as displaying image files as thumbnails of the pictures they represent. Icon View windows have many useful features; see Keys and Shortcuts for several examples.

The background of the main part of an Icon View window is green. You can also show a blue portion of the window, called a shelf. The shelf is a place to keep icons you use frequently while working in that directory. For details, see Using a Shelf for Convenient Icon Access.

Anatomy of an Icon View Window

This section explains each portion of an Icon View window. A fuller tour of the menus is in Anatomy of the Icon View Window.

The toolbar runs along the left edge of the Icon View window. Click the buttons on the toolbar to change the way icons are displayed in the window.

The Display as Icons Button

Click this button to display the contents of a directory as icons. This button is equivalent to the "as Icons" command on the View menu.

The Display as List Button

Click this button to display the contents of a directory as a list of names, one per row, with the file information shown in columns. This button is equivalent to the "as List" command on the View menu.

The Find Button

Click this button to open the finder, then type part of a name to select the matching icons in the window. See Searching for Icons by Name.