How To Use A Keyboard Shortcut To Expand Or Collapse All Folders In Mac Finder

While on my Mac, I use the list view in Finder a lot. One thing I had mixed feelings about is the tree-like view that expands folders. It was great, but I wanted a way to quickly collapse or expand folders – and I found out how!

So to quickly expand or collapse folders, all you need to do is to press the left or right arrow keys while a folder is selected. This will expand or collapse it. But I’m guessing that you already knew that – the great thing that I found is, you can first select all folders by pressing âŒ˜-A, and THEN press the left or right key to expand or collapse every folder.

Neat 😀

Alvin Poh

I've over 17 years of entrepreneurship experience, having built a tech company to be the top in the country, which was subsequently acquired for an 8-figure sum. As CEO, I led the company through robust growth to 150 employees across 4 countries. After the acquisition, I embraced minimalism, sold off my personal possessions, and started living around the world. Read more about my story here.

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View Comments

MOHAMMED EJAS EASHA says:

May 10, 2011 at 5:19 am

HI,

JUST PRESS * KEY TO EXPAND OR COLLAPSE A TREE, FOLDERS WHAT EVER IT MAY BE

ITS DONE
Jamie says:

May 15, 2012 at 9:27 am

THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG I'VE BEEN NEEDING TO KNOW HOW TO DO THIS.
YOU ARE AN AMAZING PERSON <3 :')
Spencer Thomason says:

September 30, 2012 at 6:53 pm

If you hold down the option key while pressing the right/left arrow key, you will expand/collapse all subfolders, as well.