Show folder’s contents in finder using Swift

Question or problem in the Swift programming language:

I want to be able to select a folder and show its contents in the Finder. I have managed to select the folder itself and select a file within the folder. But I don’t know how to show the contents of an empty folder.

e.g.

Folder A/Folder B

I want to display the contents of folder Folder B (which could be empty).

I have written the following code:

func showFolder(fileName : String)
{
    var dataPath = homeDirectory.stringByAppendingPathComponent(fileName)
    var urlPath = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: dataPath)
    var selectedURLs = [urlPath!]
    NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().activateFileViewerSelectingURLs(selectedURLs)
}

This only opens Folder A with Folder B highlighted. This is very close, but not quite right.

I need to be able to open Folder B with nothing highlighted. I’m obviously using the wrong command.

How to solve the problem:

Solution 1:

Use the selectFile method and pass nil as first argument and the path to the folder to be shown as second argument.

NSWorkspace.shared.selectFile(nil, inFileViewerRootedAtPath: "/Users/")

Solution 2:

2020 | SWIFT 5.1:

func showInFinder(url: URL?) {
    guard let url = url else { return }
    
    if url.isDirectory {
        NSWorkspace.shared.selectFile(nil, inFileViewerRootedAtPath: url.path)
    }
    else {
        showInFinderAndSelectLastComponent(of: url)
    }
}

func showInFinderAndSelectLastComponent(of url: URL) {
    NSWorkspace.shared.activateFileViewerSelecting([url])
}

• If you put folder’s url – it will show in Finder content of the folder.

• If you put file’s url – it will open in Finder file’s parent and select file there.

• Will do nothing in case url is nil

• Will do nothing in case file/path does not exist

Solution 3:

Swift 2.1 code to Launch OS X Finder

Use the selectFile or activateFileViewerSelectingURLs to select files.

Select 1 item in finder with path YOUR_PATH_STRING

NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().selectFile(YOUR_PATH_STRING, inFileViewerRootedAtPath: "")

The second param use empty string, if you specify an empty string “” for this parameter, the file is selected in the main viewer.

---

If you want to select 1 or more files use activateFileViewerSelectingURLs(_ fileURLs: [NSURL])

To select one file

NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().activateFileViewerSelectingURLs([NSURL].init(arrayLiteral: NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: YOUR_PATH_STRING)))

To select multiple files

let urls : [NSURL] = [NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: "/Users/USER_NAME/Pictures"),
                      NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: "/Users/USER_NAME/Music")]

If you provide item that are not in the same folder more windows selecting the specified files are open.

let urls : [NSURL] = [NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: "/Users/USER_NAME/Pictures"),
                      NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: "/Users/USER_NAME/Music"),
                      NSURL.init(fileURLWithPath: "/Users")]

Hope this helps!