Turn on the Finder path bar on Mac

The Finder path bar is off by default. To switch it on, click a Finder window, open the View menu, and choose Show Path Bar — or just press Option+Cmd+P. A location strip appears at the bottom of the window and stays on for every window until you turn it off. Below are both the menu route and a one-line Terminal version.

The View menu toggle

1. Click the desktop or any open Finder window so Finder is the active app — this menu lives in Finder, not in other apps.
2. Open the View menu in the menu bar.
3. Choose Show Path Bar. When it is already on, the same item reads Hide Path Bar.

The shortcut Option+Cmd+P (⌥⌘P) does the same thing without the menu, and toggles it back off on a second press. The path bar is a single global setting, so turning it on affects every Finder window and tab at once. The steps are identical on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

The Terminal command

For setup scripts or a dotfiles repo, the same preference is one defaults write. Restarting Finder applies it right away:

# turn the path bar on
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowPathbar -bool true
killall Finder

To turn it off again, write the opposite value — or delete the key entirely to fall back to the macOS default:

# turn it off
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowPathbar -bool false
killall Finder

# or reset to the default state
defaults delete com.apple.finder ShowPathbar
killall Finder

If the path bar won't appear

• The View menu items are greyed out or missing. Finder isn't the active app. Click the desktop first, then open View.
• Nothing changed after the command. You need the killall Finder line — it relaunches Finder so the new preference takes effect. Finder reopens on its own.
• The bar is there but empty at a tab you just opened. It fills in as soon as the tab finishes loading its folder; click into the window if it looks blank.

Turning it on is instant and completely reversible — nothing is deleted and no files move. If you decide the strip crowds the window, the same toggle removes it just as cleanly.

Add the status bar while you're here

The path bar's natural companion is the status bar, which shows item count and free space. Turn it on the same way with Cmd+/ — see how to show the Finder status bar.