by , 7:30 AM EDT, May 26th, 2006

Get Info is an often overlooked, yet useful tool in Mac OS X. Think of it as your own X-ray vision that lets you look past the surface of your documents to see the extra information that lies beneath.

You can select any file or folder in the Finder, and then choose File > Get Info to see all kinds of information about the item, like its size, when it was created and last modified, where it sits on your hard drive, and more. Instead of selecting the Get Info option from the menu bar, you can also use the Command-I keyboard short cut.

The Get Info window can tell you a lot about your documents.

If you select several items, and then apply the Get Info command, you'll see an individual window for each item. Selecting more that 10 items, however, displays a single summary window called the Multiple Item Info window. The Multiple Item Info window tells you how many items you selected, the total size for all of the items, and where they reside on your Mac.

Get Info's Multiple Item Info window.

If you want to see the Multiple Item Info window when you are selecting 10 or fewer items, just use the Command-Option-I keyboard shortcut.

Get Info windows hide a few more tidbits for you, too. You can assign Spotlight searchable comments and Color labels, lock files or folders to prevent anyone from accidentally overwriting or deleting them, change which application opens a document, and more.

Get Info can provide you with a wealth of information about your documents. Try using the command with text files, Photoshop documents, and movies to see the different types of information, or metadata, your documents are hiding.

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