How to Use Finder Tabs on Mac (Merge All Windows)

Finder windows multiply. You open one to find a download, another for a project folder, a third for an external drive, and by lunch your desktop looks like a card game. Finder has had tabs since 2013 — the same idea as browser tabs — and once you learn three shortcuts you will rarely need a second window again.

Open and switch tabs

The shortcuts mirror Safari, so they may already be in your fingers:

• Cmd+T — open a new tab. It shows whatever folder is set under Finder Settings → General → "New Finder windows show".
• Cmd+click a folder in the sidebar — open that folder in a new tab.
• Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab — cycle forward and backward through tabs.
• Cmd+W — close the current tab. Option+Cmd+W closes every other tab.
• Shift+Cmd+\ — Show All Tabs, a grid overview of every tab in the window. Press Esc to leave it.

If the tab bar is invisible when only one tab is open, choose View → Show Tab Bar to keep it on permanently. The + button at the right end of the tab bar opens new tabs by mouse.

Make folders open in tabs, not windows

By default, actions that spawn a new window — like Cmd+double-clicking a folder — create exactly that: another window. One checkbox changes the behavior system-wide:

1. In Finder, choose Finder → Settings (Cmd+,).
2. On the General tab, check Open folders in tabs instead of new windows.

Now Cmd+double-clicking any folder opens it as a tab in the current window. The same setting governs folders opened from the Dock and elsewhere. This is checked by default on recent macOS versions, so if tabs are appearing when you wanted windows, this is also the box to uncheck.

Move files between tabs

Tabs are real drop targets, which makes two-folder file shuffling painless in a single window:

1. Open the source folder in one tab and the destination in another.
2. Drag the files onto the destination's tab title and drop them there — they move to that folder directly.
3. Alternatively, hover on the tab title for a moment while dragging: the tab springs open, and you can drop the files into a specific subfolder inside it.

Remember the standard rules still apply: dragging between folders on the same disk moves files, dragging to a different disk copies them, and holding Option forces a copy either way.

Merge all windows into one

Already drowning in windows? You do not have to close them. Click any Finder window, then choose Window → Merge All Windows. Every open Finder window collapses into a single window with one tab per former window, positions preserved. It is the fastest desktop cleanup in macOS, and it works the same on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia.

The reverse exists too: drag a tab out of the tab bar and it becomes its own window again, or choose Window → Move Tab to New Window.

Related habit: choose your starting folder

Every new tab opens to the folder set in Finder Settings → General. If yours still says Recents, pick something you actually use — Downloads or your home folder. Our guide to changing where new Finder windows open walks through it.