Problem
Under macOS, sometimes we want to make new text files directly in place while browsing some folders in Finder. Opening a text editor, creating a file, and saving it to the target path is not efficient in this situation. However there is no built-in context menu item to do this as in Windows.
Solution
We can make an simple application from AppleScript, and place a shortcut in Finder’s toolbar. When you click the icon, a default text file will be created in current folder, and it will be in the status of renaming so that you can change the filename conveniently.
Step 1
Open Script Editor
, and create a new script with the following contents:
set file_name to "untitled"
set file_ext to ".md"
set is_desktop to false
-- get folder path and if we are in desktop (no folder opened)
try
tell application "Finder"
set this_folder to (folder of the front Finder window) as alias
end tell
on error
-- no open folder windows
set this_folder to path to desktop folder as alias
set is_desktop to true
end try
-- get the new file name (do not override an already existing file)
tell application "System Events"
set file_list to get the name of every disk item of this_folder
end tell
set new_file to file_name & file_ext
set x to 1
repeat
if new_file is in file_list then
set new_file to file_name & " " & x & file_ext
set x to x + 1
else
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
-- create and select the new file
tell application "Finder"
activate
set the_file to make new file at folder this_folder with properties {name:new_file}
if is_desktop is false then
reveal the_file
else
select window of desktop
set selection to the_file
end if
delay 0.4
end tell
-- press enter (rename)
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Finder"
keystroke return
end tell
end tell
(Acknowledgement: The script is borrowed from this post. I did a little modification by adding a delay line to avoid wrong keystroke.)
Note that you can change the default filename and suffix in the first two lines. Here I set it as Markdown file.
Step 2
Export the script as an Application, e.g. “NewTxtFileInFinder.app”, and put it in Application
folder.
Step 3
In Application
folder, Drag the app to the Finder’s toolbar while holding the command
button.
Step 4 (optional)
Turn off the annoying warning when changing the file suffix. This can be set in Finder’s Preference -> Advanced.
Step 5 (optional)
Change app icon to a beautiful and meaningful one.
- Find or make a icon file with suffix
icns
. - In Finder, select the app,
Cmd+i
to show the info panel. - Drag the icns file to the top-left to replace the icon.
Other solutions
An app New File Menu can add a context menu to Finder and can be used to create different documents like in Windows. It supports many formats besides text file though requires more clicks to create a new file.