How to add a folder to the Finder toolbar and drop files onto it

Hold Command and drag the folder into the toolbar at the top of a Finder window, then let go when a green plus badge appears. The folder now has a button in every Finder window. Click it to open the folder, or drop files on it to move them there, whatever folder the window happens to be showing.

Add the folder

1. Open a Finder window where you can see the folder’s own icon, not its contents.
2. Make sure the toolbar is showing. If it is not, choose View > Show Toolbar or press Option-Command-T.
3. Hold down Command and drag the folder up into the toolbar.
4. When the pointer shows a green plus, let go.

The Command key is the part people miss. Without it, the toolbar does not accept the folder and the drag goes nowhere.

The button is a shortcut, not a copy. The folder stays where it lives on disk, and the button points at it. Because the toolbar is shared by all Finder windows, you only do this once.

The same Command-drag works for apps and for single files. An app in the toolbar opens whatever you drop onto it, which is handy for an editor you send files to often.

Make the buttons readable

Out of the box the toolbar shows icons only, and every ordinary folder has the same icon. Add two folders and you cannot tell them apart.

Control-click an empty part of the toolbar and choose Icon and Text. Each button now carries its name underneath. Text Only is also available and takes less room, though the targets get smaller.

Drop files onto it

Select one file or many, drag them up to the folder’s button, and let go when it highlights. The files leave the current window and land in that folder.

The usual Finder rules apply:

• If the folder is on the same drive as the files, they move. If it is on another drive, they are copied.
• Hold Option as you drop to force a copy. Hold Command to force a move.
• Press Command-Z right afterward to put the files back.

Copy, move, or alias when you drag a file on a Mac has the full set of rules.

A toolbar folder suits a destination you file into again and again for a while: the current client, a “to sort” folder, this month’s receipts. You can be deep in Downloads or on an external drive and the target is still an inch above the files, with no second window to open.

Rearrange or remove a button

• Move it. Hold Command and drag the button left or right along the toolbar.
• Remove it. Hold Command and drag the button down out of the toolbar, then let go. The button is gone; the folder and everything in it are untouched.

If you rename the folder or move it elsewhere on the same drive, the button keeps pointing at it. If you delete the folder, the button is left pointing at nothing, so Command-drag it off.

Watch the window width. When a window is too narrow for all the buttons, the ones that do not fit are tucked into a menu at the right end of the toolbar, where they are hard to hit with a drag. Keep drop folders toward the left, or widen the window before you start.

Toolbar, sidebar or Dock

macOS gives you three places to pin a folder, and they behave differently.

The sidebar. Drag a folder into the Favorites section, or select it and choose File > Add to Sidebar. Sidebar folders accept drops just as toolbar ones do, and they also show up in Open and Save dialogs, which toolbar buttons do not. The sidebar is the better home for permanent folders. How to drag a file to a Finder sidebar folder covers it.

The Dock. Drag a folder to the right-hand side of the Dock, beyond the divider. It is reachable from any app, not only from Finder, and it takes drops too. The Dock gets crowded quickly, though, and it is out of sight when an app is in full screen.

The toolbar. Visible in Finder windows only, and absent from Open and Save dialogs. Its advantage is that it is separate from your long-term sidebar list and quick to change. It suits two or three folders that matter this week.

A reasonable split: permanent places in the sidebar, the project of the moment in the toolbar.

When there is no Finder window in front

All three of those targets share one requirement. The target has to be on screen at the moment you drop. A toolbar button exists only inside a Finder window, so it is no help when the file starts somewhere else: an attachment in a mail message, an image in a browser, a document handed to you in a chat. To reach the button you have to pick the file up, bring a Finder window forward while still holding it, and aim. That is exactly the kind of drag that gets dropped halfway.

Ledge covers that gap. Drag the file up to the notch at the top of the screen and let go; it lands on a shelf that drops from the notch and stays there. The notch is in view from every app, so there is nothing to arrange first. Carry on with what you were doing. When you are next in Finder, open the shelf with Option-Space or a click on the notch and drag the file onto the toolbar folder. Finder receives the file itself, so it moves into the folder like any other drop.

The two work well as a pair through a day. Things you come across go onto the shelf, from whichever app they turn up in. Later, one Finder window and one drag files the whole set onto the toolbar button. If some of those items belong elsewhere, the shelf hands them over in the form each place can use: a chat app gets an upload, a terminal gets the path as text.

What Ledge does not do: it does not add buttons to Finder, it does not file anything by itself, and it does not read or index your folders. It is a place to put files down until the destination is in front of you. Nothing leaves the Mac; there is no account and no cloud. On a Mac without a notch the shelf sits at the top center of the screen. Ledge needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later and is free to try for 14 days.

For more on the underlying problem, see what to do when a drag has nowhere to land.

Questions

Why does nothing happen when I drag a folder to the toolbar?

You need to hold Command during the drag, and wait for the green plus before letting go. Also check that you are dragging to the toolbar of a Finder window and not another app’s window.

Does a toolbar folder show up when I save a file from an app?

No. Open and Save dialogs show the sidebar, not your toolbar buttons. Add the folder to the sidebar’s Favorites if you want it there too.

Can I add the same folder to the toolbar and the sidebar?

Yes. They are independent shortcuts to the same folder, and removing one does not affect the other.