Text editor in OS X

Text editor in OS X

The first time I saw the inquiry I was quite confused. There are several ways of showing the full file path, copy it, and then paste it as text string in something like a text editor. Even if there are different ways of revealing the file’s full path, it is not always easy to extract the file path and paste it in a document or in a text editor you are working on. Like for example, selecting a file in the Finder and then pressing “Command-C” to copy it will have different outcome when pasting it. There are times this method will only paste the file’s name and there are also times that it will embed the file’s contents.

If you simply want to get the file path of your chosen document, you can do it using the Show Path Bar option in the Finder. But even if you see the path, this method will not allow you to copy the file path. The first alternative is to use the information window for the file. This will display the full path of the file up to its root folder or directory. To do this, select the file and then press Command-I to open its information window. The full file path of the selected file can be found in the General section indicated by the keyword “Where”.

You can now copy the file path either by clicking and dragging, or doing a double-click or a triple-click to select the text and then copy it. For several other approaches on copying the full file path, visit Copy OS X file path.