OS X Finder.app string tweaks

If you want new folders instead of untitled ones, or if you prefer to have a copy of a file instead of a file copy, it’s pretty simple to tweak some of the localization text that Finder.app uses.

Just view the package contents of /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder, and then open Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localizable.strings in TextEdit. Inside, you’ll find the contents of various messages and default names used throughout the OS X Finder interface.

You can tweak a lot of things in there, but two of the most useful are the default new folder name (normally “untitled folder”) and the name given to files that are created using the “Duplicate” menu item.

So, you can change:

“N4” = “^0 copy”;
to
“N4” = “another ^0”;

or maybe change:

“N2” = “untitled folder”;
to
“N2” = “name me”;

Aside from a goofy hack to mess with a coworker, one thing that could be useful would be to prefix new or duplicate files with an underscore or a couple of zeroes. This makes them sort to the top, easier to find in a large directory. Just make sure to make a backup of the Localizable.strings file in case you later decide you like things better the way Jobs intended it.

Change the Finder’s default name for duplicated files – Link