How to open a file from the Finder on Mac
You can do this with Note My without going back through an Open dialog. Here is every route from a Finder selection straight into the app, and how to get back to the Finder afterwards.
You are in the Finder, looking at the file. Going up to the editor, choosing File ▸ Open…, then navigating back to the folder you were already standing in is three steps too many. macOS has several routes from a selection straight into an application. This guide covers each one Note My supports, what each is best at, and how to step back out to the Finder when you are done.
Note My contains no networking code of its own; the only network activity is performed by Apple’s own system services, to establish purchases and transactions state. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and a file handed over from the Finder stays on your Mac.
Open a file from the right-click menu
The Finder extension adds a single branded submenu, Note My ▸, to the contextual menu. It arrives switched off, so nothing appears in your right-click menu until you ask for it, and the switch stays yours either way.
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Turn the extension on
Open Help ▸ Set Up Finder Integration…, which jumps to the Finder card in the welcome carousel. The card reads: "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." Press Enable… and macOS opens its extension management panel.
Once the extension is on, the card swaps the button for a green On badge, so you can tell whether the switch took. You can turn it off again in System Settings at any point; only the submenu goes away.
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Right-click the file
Select a file in any Finder window and open the contextual menu. Note My ▸ appears with the app icon beside it, and every command nests underneath it rather than scattering items through the menu you already use.
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Choose Open, or Open in Background
Open brings the editor forward with the file in a tab. Open in Background hands the file over without pulling you out of the Finder — the one to use when you are working through a folder and want several files queued up before you look at any of them.
Several files at once
Select more than one file and the same submenu applies. Each file arrives in its own tab. Two extra verbs appear only when the selection makes sense for them:
- Compare the 2 Files — shown only when exactly two files are selected. Both files open and our comparison view marks the differences in place.
- Concatenate & Open — shown when more than one file is selected. You get one document containing all of them, which is the quick answer to a set of rotated logs.
The rest of the items menu covers jobs you would otherwise open a Terminal for: New File Beside This… ▸, Open Containing Folder, Open in Terminal Here, Copy Path and Copy Relative Path. With a single file selected you also get Copy Contents, Copy as Markdown Code Block, and Copy for AI (path + fenced) — the last puts the path and the contents on the clipboard inside a fenced block, ready to paste into an AI chat.
Opening a folder
Right-click the background of a Finder window, or a folder in the Finder sidebar, and the submenu changes to the container set: Open This Folder, New File Here… ▸, New File from Clipboard, Open in Terminal Here and Copy Folder Path.
Open This Folder opens the folder's ordinary files as tabs, in name order, leaving hidden files and packages alone. A folder of scripts, a folder of configuration files or a week of rotated logs arrives in one action, already in the order you would have scanned it, each tab coloured by our syntax engine. Close the two you did not need and the rest are already in front of you.
Opening a folder fills the window with its files as tabs, ready to read one beside the next. When you would rather search a directory tree than open it, use Search ▸ Find in Folder… (⇧⌘F), which searches every text file beneath the folder you choose and groups the matches under the file they came from.
The Services menu
macOS keeps a second, older route in the Services menu, and Note My appears there as Open in Note My. Select a file, then look under the application menu's Services submenu, or in the Finder's contextual menu under Services ▸ Open in Note My.
You need to have launched Note My once for the item to appear; after that it stays put, and you do not have to log out and back in. Choose it with nothing usable selected and it says so plainly — "No files to open."
It earns its place by working wherever a file selection can be made, not only in the Finder. Any application that offers a file selection can pass it to the editor this way, which makes the Services route the one to reach for when you are already somewhere else — a file listed in a search window, or an attachment sitting in a mail message you have saved to disk.
Dragging files in
Dragging is often the fastest route of all, and there are two targets.
The tab bar. Drag one or more files from the Finder onto the tab strip of an open window. The bar highlights with an accent tint while the drag is over it, and dropping opens each file in its own tab. Drop an alias or a symlink and you get the file it points at.
The welcome screen. With no document open, the empty state offers itself as a drop target. Its hint line normally reads "Tip: Drag & drop files here • ⌘O to Open • ⌘N for New", and flips to "Drop to open" the moment a drag comes over the window, so you know the drop will land before you release.
The tab bar takes files by the armful. Select a dozen in the Finder, drag them across in one movement, and each one lands in its own tab ready to read. A selection is the precise instrument here — whatever you highlight is exactly what arrives, whether that is two files you want side by side or the twenty you have just narrowed a folder down to with a Finder search. When it is the folder itself you are after, Open This Folder in the Finder submenu saves you the drag.
Hold ⌥ and click the + button at the end of the tab bar. It diverts to Open instead of creating a new empty tab — the same as ⌘O, without moving the pointer to the menu bar.
When macOS says the file is not text
A file with no extension, or with an extension the system has handed to something else, takes one keystroke instead of the ordinary route. Use ⇧⌘O — File ▸ Open Anything as Text… — which opens the file in the editor regardless of what macOS thinks it is.
This is a deliberate arrangement, not a workaround. Note My will open anything you ask it to, and it will not quietly take ownership of your file types: it never offers itself as the default application for arbitrary files. The Finder submenu's own Open behaves the same way, which is why it succeeds on files a double-click would not.
It is the route for the awkward cases: a .conf claimed by some installer, a certificate, a dotfile with no extension. Once the file is open, our advanced language identifier gives it sensible colours without you choosing anything.
You still get a warning before opening a file that looks like binary data, so a stray image does not fill a tab with rubble. Switch it off if you would rather not be asked, in Settings ▸ Encoding.
Getting back to the Finder
The trip in the other direction matters just as much.
- Click the path in the toolbar. The identity area at the left of the toolbar shows the app name and the active file's path as a clickable label. Clicking it reveals that file in the Finder; hovering shows the full path. An unsaved document shows no path, because there is nothing to reveal.
- ⇧⌘R — File ▸ Reveal in Finder selects the file in a Finder window.
- File ▸ Open Containing Folder opens the enclosing folder instead of selecting the file inside it.
- ⌥⇧⌘C copies the full path. Copy File Name and Copy Containing Folder Path sit beside it.
All of these grey out on an untitled tab, since a document that has never been saved has no location on disk.
What happens to a file you open and never save
Opening a file changes nothing about it. The colour you see comes from our syntax engine, and log lines get their own treatment, but none of it is written into the document — so a file you open, read and close is byte-for-byte what it was. Glancing at a file under version control will not show it as modified.
If you do type in it, our auto-recovery safety net takes over from the first keystroke. It is automatic and always on, so there is nothing to set up on the day you need it. The tab title gains a leading *, and if the app quits unexpectedly that work comes back by itself on the next launch — no dialog, no list to pick from. All of it stays on your Mac.
It stands behind saving rather than replacing it: ⌘S is still what puts your edits on disk, and the leading * clears the moment it does, so a glance at the tab title tells you where a file stands.
Troubleshooting
The "Note My ▸" submenu has not appeared yet
The Finder extension is not enabled. macOS controls that switch, not the app. Open Help ▸ Set Up Finder Integration… and press Enable…, which takes you to the system panel where extensions are turned on. The card shows a green On badge once it has taken effect.
Double-clicking a file opens a different application
That is by design. For source code, scripts, plain text, JSON, XML, YAML, HTML and CSS, Note My offers itself in the Finder's Open With list without displacing whatever you already use. Change the default yourself in the Finder's Get Info panel, or open this one file through the right-click submenu.
A folder's hidden files stayed where they were
Open This Folder deals in a folder's ordinary files, so dotfiles and packages stay put rather than crowding your tab bar. To bring one in, select it in the Finder and use the submenu's Open, or ⇧⌘O for a dotfile with no extension at all. To work across a whole tree of files at once, search it with Search ▸ Find in Folder… (⇧⌘F), which reads every text file beneath the folder and leaves each one exactly as it found it.
You meant to drop a folder, not a file
The tab bar deals in files; a folder has its own route. Use Open This Folder from the Finder submenu and you get the same result in one step. The kind of file is wide open, though, so a binary dropped onto the tab bar goes through — the binary warning described above is what stands between you and a screenful of bytes.
"Open in Note My" has yet to show up in the Services menu
Launch Note My once and look again. The item appears as soon as the app has run on that Mac, then stays put — no logging out, no restart.
Beyond the Finder
A link that opens files. The notemy:// URL scheme gives you a route in from anywhere on the Mac that can follow a link — a note, a shortcut, a task list, a script. It has verbs for opening one or more paths, opening a folder, and comparing two files, so a link you save today puts you in front of the same set of files tomorrow morning without a single trip through the Finder. It stays local, and it is read-into-editor only: it hands files to the editor and never executes anything.
A file that stays live. Opening a file leaves it free for everything else on your Mac. A build carries on writing to the log you are reading; a branch switch rewrites the file under your eyes. When the file behind a tab changes, you are told — a clean tab offers Reload or Keep My Version, so the choice of which version wins is yours rather than something you discover later. Reloading never changes the file on disk.
Between them, the submenu, the Services item, a drag onto the tab bar and a saved link cover every way a file tends to reach you: found in a folder, sent by a colleague, spat out by a build, or reopened out of yesterday's notes.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make Note My the app that opens my text files?
Yes. Set it once in the Finder's Get Info panel — pick Note My under Open With, then Change All… — and every file of that type follows from then on. Until you say so, nothing moves: for text and source types Note My puts itself in the Open With list and leaves the defaults you already have exactly as they were.
Can I open a file that has no extension?
Yes. Use ⇧⌘O, File ▸ Open Anything as Text…, or the Finder submenu's Open, which behaves the same way. A file that looks like binary data prompts first; that warning is on by default and can be switched off in Settings ▸ Encoding.
How does Open This Folder decide what to open?
It works through the folder's ordinary files in name order, one tab each, and leaves hidden files and packages where they are so the tab bar stays readable — a folder of scripts or a week of rotated logs comes up in the order you would have read it anyway. When you want a particular set instead, select those files in the Finder and use the submenu's Open: a selection opens exactly what you selected, however many you pick.
Can I open a file from the Terminal or a script?
Yes — through the notemy:// URL scheme, with verbs to open one or more paths, open a folder, and compare two files. Anything on your Mac that can open a URL can hand a file to the editor that way, which covers a script, a shortcut or a link in your notes. It is local and read-into-editor only: it opens files and never executes anything.
What happens if the file changes on disk while it is open?
You are told. A clean tab offers Reload or Keep My Version; a tab with unsaved edits always prompts, whichever alert setting you have chosen. If the file is deleted you get Keep in Editor or Close Tab.