Show and copy the full folder path in Finder

You're in a folder in Finder and you need its path somewhere else — pasted into Terminal, dropped into an upload dialog, or sent to a colleague who asked "where is that?" Two moves cover it: show the full path in the title bar so you can read it, and use one of Finder's copy tricks to get it onto the clipboard in a second. No third-party tools, and the display change undoes cleanly.

First, make the path visible

By default the title bar shows only the folder's name. To display the whole path, open Terminal and run:

# Show the full path in the Finder title bar
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
killall Finder

The active window now reads something like /Users/you/Sites/client/build, so you can confirm you're copying the right location before you copy it. Reverse it any time:

# Undo
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool false
killall Finder

It's a hidden preference — no Settings switch — and behaves identically on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

The fastest ways to copy the path

Reading it is fine; grabbing it as text is faster. Pick whichever fits what you're doing:

• Copy as Pathname. Right-click the folder, hold Option, and the Copy item becomes Copy "name" as Pathname. That puts the full POSIX path on your clipboard — ready for Cmd+V anywhere.
• Path bar right-click. With the path bar showing (View → Show Path Bar), right-click any segment and choose Copy "name" as Pathname to copy the path to that level — useful when you want a parent folder, not the one you're in.
• Drag the proxy icon. Hover the title until the small folder icon appears, then drag it. Drop it into a Terminal window and the full path is typed out for you; drop it into a Save or Upload dialog to jump straight there.

Pasting into Terminal without touching the mouse

If your destination is usually Terminal, this pairing is the quickest of all:

1. Right-click the folder, hold Option, choose Copy as Pathname.
2. Switch to Terminal and type cd (with a trailing space), then press Cmd+V and Return.

You're now working in that exact folder. The reverse trip works too: in Terminal, run open . to open the current directory back in a Finder window. Between the visible title-bar path and Copy as Pathname, moving a location from Finder to anywhere else stops being a retype-it chore.

Pasting a path into a Save or Open dialog

Copied paths aren't just for Terminal. Any app's Open or Save dialog can jump straight to a copied path without clicking through folders:

1. Copy the folder's path with Copy as Pathname.
2. In the Open or Save sheet, press Shift+Cmd+G to bring up the "Go to Folder" field.
3. Paste with Cmd+V and press Return — the dialog is now pointed at that exact folder.

One thing to know about the copied text: Copy as Pathname always gives you the full absolute path starting from the drive, never a shortened ~ or a relative path. That's what you want for pasting into another app, but if you're sharing the location with a person rather than a machine, it will include your account name — /Users/yourname/… — so trim it to the ~ form by hand when you don't want to reveal it.

More ways to grab a path

Copy as Pathname is the fastest, but it's not the only route, and it works on files as well as folders. For the full set — including a Services shortcut you can trigger from the keyboard — see how to copy a file path on Mac.