So, this might be down to discoverability being such a challenge, but it's actually very easy to copy a filepath in Finder - with great precision too.
There is an element called 'Path Bar' that can appear at the bottom of Finder file panes. You may or may not have this thing hidden, there's an option in the 'View' menu. Make sure the Path Bar is visible and right-click on any part of the path to copy up to that point.
Frankly, I rarely use it since the terminal is so much more powerful for file handling tasks, but there you go. The solution existed just past your threshold to discover it, which is a whole 'nother kind of UI problem. But I find this implementation to be superior to Explorer or any of the Linux stuff.
> But I find this implementation to be superior to Explorer or any of the Linux stuff.
Thats crazy to me. Explorer is 1000x better in my opinion. In fact, explorer and window-pane snapping / window resize rules are about the only things I prefer on Windows over Mac.
Specifically for this use case, you just click the address bar and it becomes copy-able in Windows. No need to edit any preferences to get that feature either.
To be clear, I am saying that this one feature is done better in Finder. Explorer has many cool features, but in this case it's not up to par.
Both examples present us a line of breadcrumbs. Both allow you to interact with the breadcrumbs directly and use them to navigate, or right-click to copy them as a filesystem path. so far so good.
But Explorer falls short here: At no point does the filename you are focused on appear in the trail of breadcrumbs. Not in default mode, nor in the abrupt switch to plaintext if you click a little past the breadcrumbs. In Finder, the focused file appears at the end of the list and you can right click to copy the full path.
Essentially, Explorer is limited to providing the enclosing folder only, which is a kind of stunted quality to this feature. I'd say in the majority of cases, you are trying to grab this path to do something to a specific file, not to an enclosing folder. Copying off of a network share, or some GUI scp/sftp application... those sorts of things. In Explorer, no matter what you are forced to switch modes to the keyboard, to type out the file name.
This is just not the case in Finder. You can grab the path up to the file name from the get go and do your thing, never switching modes to the keyboard if that's how you want to work. For that reason alone the Finder implementation of this specific feature is superior.
And one last thing? at no point did I say you have to 'edit any preferences' about this. You can toggle the breadcrumbs on/off with a single item in the 'view' menu. Some people may have toggled it off, so I thought I'd point it out.
I switched to Linux a little while ago and haven't used Windows 11 at all, but iirc on 10 you can shift right click to copy the path to the file. Sure it's an extra button press, but the functionality is there.
thanks, that is bound to come in handy at some point.
AS an aside, this kinda touches on what I mentioned about discoverability - I sorta go out of my way to understand how to get stuff done on these various OSs and this one eluded me. I was under the impression you would have to install powertoys and use 'send to...' commands to get this done on windows GUI.
You're not wrong. However, my frustration is I remember experiencing the exact same issue in approx 2008, wrestling finder to display a filepath. And again in 2014.
If memory serves, all three incidents had a distinct set of menus, first you had to display the folders, etc etc, to make it as irritating as possible.
So, this might be down to discoverability being such a challenge, but it's actually very easy to copy a filepath in Finder - with great precision too.
There is an element called 'Path Bar' that can appear at the bottom of Finder file panes. You may or may not have this thing hidden, there's an option in the 'View' menu. Make sure the Path Bar is visible and right-click on any part of the path to copy up to that point.
Frankly, I rarely use it since the terminal is so much more powerful for file handling tasks, but there you go. The solution existed just past your threshold to discover it, which is a whole 'nother kind of UI problem. But I find this implementation to be superior to Explorer or any of the Linux stuff.