04/01/2026
Column view in the Finder has an annoying tendency to either show overly wide columns that waste space or truncate long filenames, forcing you to drag a column divider to see more of the name. In macOS 26.1 Tahoe, Apple added an option to the Finderâs View Options window that automatically adjusts column widths to display the longest visible filename in each column.
To activate it, choose View > Show View Options with a column-view window frontmost, then select the âResize columns to fit filenamesâ checkbox. If youâre running macOS 13 Ventura through macOS 15 Sequoia, this option is hidden, but you can enable it by pasting this command into Terminal: defaults write com.apple.finder _FXEnableColumnAutoSizing -bool YES; killall Finder. (Change YES to NO to revert the change.)
Alternatively, the free TinkerTool 10 utility provides a graphical toggle for these older operating systemsâlook for âAutomatically adapt to file name widths in column modeâ in the Finder section.
â> See bio for full blog post or sign up to receive the blog posts on wearescout.com