Naturally, you have not filled your Mac's desktop with folders. You've done it with files. But from time to time, when you can't see anything any more, you make some temporary folders and move everything into there. Job done. Until you now have millions of folders and unlike files, folders all look identical. Not any more. Not if you buy
Folder Color.
The idea is that with this application. you can quickly color-code your folders. Drag a folder onto the application, and its color will change to whatever you've specified. We made all our financial folders red, and then get very depressed. We made our future projects folder a shiny green, and felt better.
Whatever we did, and whatever mood it engendered in us, it all happened very quickly. Open Folder Color, choose a color from the standard color wheel, drag the target folder onto the app's window, and it's done. If you're on a 27-inch iMac, then by the time your eye flicks back to the original folder, it will have changed color.
We've been here before.
Folderol does the same thing in
much the same way, though Folder Color is a nicer-looking design. Folderol also lets you put images into the folders instead of a color, and that's not a bad thing, but we're not sure how great it is.
Folder Color is primarily for setting the color like this, but it does also let you mark them in other ways. Specifically, it allows you to add an image that then gets stamped onto the folder, plus it comes with a built-in series of 35 extra icons, like checkmarks and stars and calendars and such.
Set the color you want a folder to be, and then drag one of these icons on top of the sample folder within the app's main window. Then drag a real folder onto it from your Mac, and that will change to this color and that icon. You can actually drag more than one. You could drag all 35 if you were in the mood, and then adjust each one's size and position by eye or through various settings.
Everything Folder Color says it will do, it does well. We'd rather the Resource Library button were a true toggle, and that pressing it again would close that library window, but that's just a design nicety. Still, Folder Color's advantage is that it looks more Mac-like than Folderol.
Note that you don't need any application to change the color of your folders or files. If you highlight one and choose Get Info, there is an image in the panel that appears. You can drag other images onto that, and the folder will change to whatever that is. Still, that does mean having some kind of graphics package, and it seems a bit overkill to have Pixelmator or Adobe Photoshop to do this.
So if you'll find separating your work out into color-coded folders is useful, then so is Folder Color.
Folder Color 2.1.0 requires OS X 10.7 or later, and at
time of review costs $3 on the App Store. Note that the official, regular price is $20, and it isn't worth that.
Who is Folder Color 2.1.0 for:
Visual thinkers who spend a lot of time working on their Macs, and need or want to be organized.
Who is Folder Color 2.1.0 not for:
If you only ever open an application in your dock and then use it to pick your documents through File/Open, this won't be much help.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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