Finder Favorites and Path Bar

Morningside
Contributor II

Hi folks, question regarding how to configure some of the finder preferences and settings that are not in the Finder Payload.

  1. I would like for some of my users to have various folders already in the finder favorites list such as /Users/Shared/School/Resources

  2. I would like for the Path Bar to be shown for all users.

Is there a way to do with with either policies or config profiles? If not, what is the preferred method for doing this?

2 REPLIES 2

mm2270
Legendary Contributor III

I don't know if the Path Bar is something configurable in a Config Profile. I don't see a setting for that at first glance.

The good news however is you can set that as a custom settings payload by creating a new plist with just that entry in it. For example, run something like this in Terminal.

defaults write ~/Desktop/com.apple.finder.plist ShowPathbar -bool YES
Now run this to ensure the plist is in the proper format
plutil -convert xml1 ~/Desktop/com.apple.finder.plist

Then go into your Jamf Pro server, create a new Config Profile. Add the Custom Settings payload and click the Upload Property List button. Select that com.apple.finder.plist file on your Desktop and it should upload it, showing com.apple.finder as the Preference Domain and the setting in it.

Test by scoping to a system and push. I'm not sure if the Profile should be set to Computer Level or User Level. Technically the com.apple.finder.plist lives in the user space, so maybe try User Level.

As for the Finder Favorites sidebar, I suggest looking through this thread for some solutions:
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/5613/script-to-edit-finder-favorites-to-include-ad-netw...

howie_isaacks
Valued Contributor II

@mm2270 Yesterday I spent a couple of hours trying to get the path bar to show using a configuration profile Application & Custom Settings payload. I wrote the plist properly but it just wouldn't work right. I used your method of creating the plist, and it's working now. Thanks. Oddly, when I created a profile to turn on the setting to empty the trash after 30 days, that worked perfectly. It was only showing the path bar that became a pain to get to work.