Set Finder's default view to Column or List

Finder opens new windows in Icon view by default, but that's rarely the most useful option. Column view is excellent for navigating deep folder structures, and List view is better when you have a lot of files and want to scan metadata quickly. Here's how to change the default for all new windows — and how to deal with the per-folder overrides that Finder likes to remember.

The four Finder views

Finder offers four ways to display a folder's contents:

• Icon view (⌘1) — large thumbnails in a grid. Good for photos and media, awkward for large file lists.
• List view (⌘2) — compact rows with columns for name, date, size, and kind. Great for folders with many files.
• Column view (⌘3) — cascading columns showing parent › folder › file. The fastest way to navigate deep hierarchies without losing your place.
• Gallery view (⌘4) — large preview of the selected file with a strip of thumbnails below. Useful for photos, PDFs, and other visual files.

You can switch any window at any time with those shortcuts. The question is which view opens when you hit ⌘N or click a folder for the first time.

The GUI way: View Options

1. Open a Finder window and switch to the view you want — press ⌘3 for Column, ⌘2 for List, etc.
2. Press ⌘J (or go to View › Show View Options) to open the View Options panel.
3. At the bottom of the panel, click "Use as Defaults".

This writes your chosen view — along with any other options you've set, like icon size or sort order — as the global default for folders that don't have their own saved preferences.

The Terminal way

The FXPreferredViewStyle key controls the default view. Each view has a four-character code:

# Column view (recommended for navigation)
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "clmv"

# List view (recommended for large folders)
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "Nlsv"

# Icon view (macOS default)
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "icnv"

# Gallery view
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "Flwv"

# Restart Finder to apply
killall Finder

Why some folders ignore the default

This is the part that trips people up. Finder saves per-folder view preferences in invisible .DS_Store files inside each folder. Once you've opened a folder in a particular view, that folder "remembers" your choice — and it overrides the global default.

So if you set the default to Column view but you keep opening a folder in List view, that folder has a saved preference for List. The global default only applies to folders that have never been opened, or whose .DS_Store has been cleared.

To reset a specific folder so it respects the global default:

1. Open the folder in Finder.
2. Press ⌘J to open View Options.
3. Click "Use as Defaults" — this resets this folder to the global default rather than saving a per-folder override.

Alternatively, deleting the .DS_Store file inside a folder removes all its saved preferences, including view style. After deletion, that folder will open in whatever your global default is set to.

How to undo

To go back to Icon view (the macOS default):

defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "icnv"
killall Finder

Which view should you use?

Column view is the best default for most people who navigate deep project folders or code repositories. You can see your location in the hierarchy at a glance, and clicking a file shows a Quick Look preview in the rightmost column without opening anything.

List view is better if you spend time in flat folders with many files — Downloads, Desktop, a shared team folder — where you want to sort by date or size and scan a long list quickly.

There's no wrong answer. The point is to set the default deliberately rather than accept whatever Finder happened to remember from the last time you changed a window.