Finder extension not showing on Mac
Note My puts its own submenu in the Finder's right-click menu, and macOS leaves the switch in your hands. Here is how to turn it on, everything it adds, and how to make it the shortest way from a file in a folder to a file in the editor.
You installed the editor, right-clicked a file in the Finder expecting a Note My ▸ item, and the menu looked the way it always has. One switch stands between you and it. The right-click menu comes from a Finder extension bundled inside the app, and macOS holds every third-party Finder extension back until you enable it yourself — the choice belongs to you, in a place only you can reach. It is an operating-system setting rather than an application one, so a single tick is the whole job and the switch stays where you put it.
This guide flips that switch, walks through everything the submenu adds, and turns a right-click into the shortest route you have from a file in a folder to a file open in front of you.
What the extension actually adds
Two different menus, depending on what you right-click. Select one or more files and you get the items menu. Right-click the background of a window, or a folder in the sidebar, and you get the container menu.
| Right-click a file selection | Right-click a folder or window background |
|---|---|
| Open | Open This Folder |
| Open in Background | New File Here… ▸ |
| Compare the 2 Files (exactly two selected) | New File from Clipboard |
| Concatenate & Open (more than one selected) | Open in Terminal Here |
| New File Beside This… ▸ | Copy Folder Path |
| Open Containing Folder | |
| Open in Terminal Here | |
| Copy Path · Copy Relative Path | |
| Copy Contents (one file) | |
| Copy as Markdown Code Block (one file) | |
| Copy for AI (path + fenced) (one file) |
Three are worth knowing about before you go looking for them elsewhere. Compare the 2 Files opens both files and puts them straight into our comparison view, so you see what differs without setting anything up first. Concatenate & Open takes a selection and hands you one document containing all of it. Copy for AI (path + fenced) copies the file as a fenced code block with its path above it — the shape an AI chat wants when you ask about one file.
The container menu is worth a look too. New File Here… creates a file in the folder you right-clicked and opens it, and New File from Clipboard turns whatever you have copied into a document on the spot.
Turn it on from inside the app
This is the shortest route. One menu item takes you to a card that tells you whether the submenu is on, and to the switch if it is not.
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Choose Help ▸ Set Up Finder Integration…
Open Help ▸ Set Up Finder Integration… from the menu bar. It opens the welcome carousel directly on its Finder page, headed Open from Finder. You do not have to page through anything to reach it.
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Read the card, then press Enable…
The page carries a card titled Finder extension: "Adds 'Note My ▸' to the right-click menu — open, compare, new from template, copy for AI, and more. You control it any time in System Settings." If the extension is off, the card shows an Enable… button. Press it.
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Tick the extension in the list macOS opens
The button hands you to the operating system's own extension management interface. Tick Note My there. macOS keeps that switch for you alone, which is the point of it: the decision is yours, and it is reversible in the same place at any time.
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Watch the card turn green
Come back to the carousel. A green On badge replaces the Enable… button within a moment. The badge follows the setting itself, so once it is green you can stop checking.
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Right-click a file to confirm
Right-click any file in the Finder. You should see Note My ▸ with the app icon beside it, holding the commands listed above.
Turn it on from System Settings instead
You do not need the app open. Everything the Enable… button does, you can do yourself: open System Settings, find the Extensions section — searching the Settings window for "Extensions" is the reliable route, since the section has moved between macOS releases — and enable Note My under the Finder extensions. You do not have to restart anything.
The same place is where you turn it off again, so the switch stays yours in both directions. The editor behaves identically either way — the submenu is a shortcut into it, switched on and off entirely on your terms.
Turning it on adds a menu and nothing more. Everything Note My does happens on your Mac: there is no account, nothing is uploaded, and your files never leave the machine.
Note My requires macOS 13.0 or later, and the extension ships inside the app — there is nothing separate to download or install.
Why every command sits under one "Note My ▸" item
Everything sits under a single item carrying the app icon, rather than scattering a dozen entries through your context menu. A Finder right-click menu is shared property, and menus that get long stop being useful.
So look for one line rather than twelve. It sits with the other third-party additions, below the system's own commands, towards the foot of the menu: the app icon, the words Note My, and an arrow. Hover that arrow and the whole set unfolds beside it. On a short window a long context menu can run past the bottom of the screen, so scroll to the end and you will find it waiting there.
What the extension can see, and what it leaves alone
System Settings describes the extension as covering your whole disk. That sounds broader than it is.
- It is what makes the menu appear everywhere. An extension limited to one folder would offer its commands only in that folder.
- It is sandboxed on the same terms as the app. It can reach the files you hand it and nothing else — no camera, no microphone, no location, and no roaming through the rest of your Mac.
- It uploads nothing. There is no telemetry, no crash reporter and no update checker. There is no account, and your files never leave your Mac.
- Opening the menu does not open your files. Right-clicking shows you the commands that suit what you have selected. Nothing is read until you choose one of them.
- Nothing happens out of sight. The open commands bring up the editor with the result in a tab you can see; the copy commands put text on your clipboard. No file is rewritten behind your back.
The submenu keeps its own quick list
The Finder submenu and the app hold their settings separately, which is what lets the submenu answer straight away: right-click, choose, done, whether or not the editor is already running. Nothing you pick in the submenu quietly rearranges the editor, and the editor leaves the submenu as it found it.
New File Beside This… and New File Here… carry their own quick list of starting points, so a new file of the right shape, in the right folder, is two clicks from a Finder window. The full set — including everything you have saved for yourself under My Templates — sits in our template library inside the app, a click away at File ▸ New from Template or on the Templates button in the toolbar.
Comparison works the same way round. Select two files, choose Compare the 2 Files, and both open with our comparison view already running: the differences are on screen before you have adjusted a single setting. It is the shortest route into a comparison the app has, and it works from any folder on your Mac.
Where the submenu earns its place
Once it is on, the jobs worth knowing are the ones you have been doing the long way round:
- Hand a file to an AI chat. Copy for AI (path + fenced) gives you the path and the contents together, already fenced, so one paste carries everything the answer needs to be about the right file.
- Quote a file in a message or a review. Copy as Markdown Code Block does the fencing for you, and Copy Contents is the plain version for when you want the text and nothing around it.
- Get a path into a command. Copy Path and Copy Relative Path sit side by side, and Open in Terminal Here puts a shell in the folder you are looking at without typing a single
cd. - Start from what you have already copied. New File from Clipboard turns a snippet lifted out of a browser, a chat or a log into a document in the folder you right-clicked, open and ready to edit.
- Read without losing your place. Open in Background puts a file in a tab and leaves you in the Finder, which is what you want when you are working down a folder file by file.
- Bring several files together. Concatenate & Open takes the whole selection and hands you one document holding all of it, ready to read in a single pass.
None of it runs your files. Every command either opens or creates a document, copies text to your clipboard, or opens a Terminal window at that folder — and whatever it opens arrives in a tab in front of you, where you can see it. The files on disk stay exactly as they were until you save.
Troubleshooting
The submenu changes as I change my selection
That is the submenu reading what you have picked and offering the commands that fit it, so you are never hunting through entries that do not apply. Compare the 2 Files arrives with exactly two files selected. Concatenate & Open arrives with more than one. Copy Contents, Copy as Markdown Code Block and Copy for AI arrive with a single file. Adjust what is highlighted in the Finder and the submenu follows immediately, so the command you want is one right-click away as soon as the right files are selected.
The card still shows Enable… after I toggled the switch
If the badge has not turned green, macOS still has the extension switched off. Re-open the extensions list and check that the tick actually stuck, rather than the row simply being highlighted. There is nothing to reset or clear on the app's side — the only thing that matters is the tick.
Making Note My the app that opens on a double-click
Your defaults are yours to set, and enabling the extension leaves them exactly as you had them. Note My offers itself in Open With for source code, scripts, plain text, JSON, XML, YAML, HTML and CSS, without taking anyone's defaults away, and it never competes to own arbitrary files. To hand it a whole file type, select one file of that type, open the Finder's Get Info panel, pick Note My under Open With and press Change All…. To open a single file in the editor and leave every association untouched, use Note My ▸ Open.
Which files arrive when I open a folder
Opening a folder brings you the files you are likely to want and leaves the rest where they are: hidden files and packages stay untouched, and a folder holding a great many files opens a workable set rather than flooding the tab bar. To bring in any other file, open it directly: right-click it and choose Note My ▸ Open, or use File ▸ Open… (⌘O) and pick out exactly what you need — either route brings it up in a tab of its own. With a folder you work in daily, selecting the two or three files you actually want and choosing Note My ▸ Open is quicker still, and it keeps the tab bar readable.
Putting a file created from the Finder somewhere else
Creating a file from the Finder shows you no save panel, which is what makes it a single click: the file appears in the folder you right-clicked, already open and ready to type into. To send it elsewhere, use File ▸ Save As… (⇧⌘S) and choose the folder you had in mind. That is also the move when you right-click somewhere the system keeps read-only, such as a locked volume: the document opens in front of you either way, and Save As… settles where it lives.
Getting Note My to appear in the extensions list
macOS lists the applications it has already seen run. Move Note My to your Applications folder, launch it once from there rather than from the disk image you downloaded, and the row appears alongside the other extensions, ready to tick. Should you still be looking for it after that, write to help@notemy.app with your macOS version and we will work it out with you.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to install anything separately to get the right-click menu?
The extension ships inside the app, so the whole thing is one download. macOS keeps third-party Finder extensions switched off until you say otherwise, which makes turning it on the only step — from Help ▸ Set Up Finder Integration… or from System Settings.
Why does the extension cover my whole disk?
So that the submenu is there in every folder rather than in one blessed location. It is sandboxed on the same terms as the app. The only network activity is performed by Apple’s own system services, to establish purchases and transactions state. Nothing is read until you choose a command that opens or copies a file. Nothing is uploaded and no file leaves your Mac.
Can I get the right-click commands without enabling the extension?
Several routes are open to you already. The macOS Services menu carries Open in Note My, which needs no setup at all. You can drag files onto the tab bar, or use File ▸ Open… (⌘O). For comparing, open both files and choose Compare Files… from the toolbar, which wants at least two open documents. The concatenate and copy commands are the submenu's own, and are one right-click away once it is on.
Which templates does the Finder submenu offer?
Its own quick list, so a new file of the right shape is two clicks from any folder in the Finder. The full set lives in our template library inside the app — everything you have saved under My Templates included — reached from File ▸ New from Template or the Templates button in the toolbar.
Does enabling the extension make Note My my default text editor?
Your defaults stay exactly as you set them. The app offers itself in Open With without claiming anything, so what opens on a double-click is unchanged, and Note My ▸ Open gets you into the editor whenever you want it. Defaults are changed in the Finder's Get Info panel, and only by you.
Which keyboard shortcuts cover the same ground?
The submenu itself is a right-click away from any file, and the moves you repeat most have key equivalents inside the app: File ▸ Reveal in Finder is ⇧⌘R, File ▸ Copy Path is ⌥⇧⌘C, and File ▸ Open… is ⌘O.