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How to Customize the Right-Click Menu on a Mac

· 6 min read

Right-click a file in the Finder and you get the same long menu every time: Open, Get Info, Rename, Compress, Duplicate, Make Alias, Quick Look, Copy, Share…, a row of tag colors, then Quick Actions and whatever your apps have added. The command you use ten times a day sits wherever Apple put it, and the ones you never touch stay too.

The short answer: macOS has no setting to reorder the Finder's context menu or to remove its built-in commands. You can switch off what other things add to it (Quick Actions, Services, app extensions, tag colors), and add commands of your own as Quick Actions made with Shortcuts or Automator. To choose the order, group the commands and hide the rest, you need a file manager whose menu you can rearrange: in Folia Files, that's Settings › Context Menu.

The Context Menu page of Folia Files' settings: each action of the file menu with its place (In the Menu, In “More” or Hidden), a separator, Add a Separator and Restore the Original Menu

What macOS lets you change in the Finder's menu

Apple's own commands are fixed: no setting, and no extension an app can install, moves or removes Open, Get Info, Rename, Compress, Duplicate, Make Alias, Quick Look or Copy. What you can trim is everything that gets added to them, each part in its own place.

Quick Actions

Right-click a file and choose Quick Actions › Customize…. System Settings opens on the list of the Finder's Quick Actions: turn off the ones you never use.

Services

Services are listed at the bottom of the menu. To remove one, open System Settings › Keyboard, click Keyboard Shortcuts…, select Services and untick it; the ones that work on files are mostly under Files and Folders. This list is shared by every app: a service you untick leaves the Services menu everywhere, not just in the Finder.

Items added by apps

Cloud storage apps, archive utilities and terminal helpers add their own commands to the Finder's menu through extensions. To remove them without uninstalling the app, open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions, find the app under Extensions and turn its extension off.

Tag colors

The colored dots are your favorite tags. Choose Finder › Settings…, click Tags and drag a tag out of the Favorites area at the bottom of the window: it leaves the menu, and you can still apply it with Tags….

One more command hides in the Finder's menu: hold ⌥ while it's open, and Copy becomes Copy “…” as Pathname.

How to add your own command

The only way to put a command of your own in the Finder's menu is a Quick Action:

  • With Shortcuts: build the shortcut, then in its details turn on Use as Quick Action and tick Finder. Tick Services Menu as well, and it also shows up in the Services of other apps. This guide to the Shortcuts app lists the file actions to build it from.
  • With Automator: create a Quick Action document, set it to receive files or folders in the Finder, add your actions and save it.

A New Text File command is the classic example. Either way, the new command goes into the Quick Actions submenu or joins the Services at the bottom: you can't place it any higher.

Arrange the whole menu in Folia Files

Folia Files is a file manager for the Mac, and since version 1.2 its right-click menu is yours to arrange: what stays, in what order, what moves into a submenu and what disappears. It's one of the ways it lets you make the app your own.

Open the Context Menu settings

  1. Choose Folia Files › Settings… (⌘,) and click Context Menu, in the Files group. Typing “right-click” in the search field above the list of pages finds it too.
  2. At the top, choose the menu to change: On Items is the menu of the selected files and folders, On a Folder's Background the one you get on an empty spot of a pane.

Give each action its place

Each action has a pop-up menu with three choices:

  • In the Menu: it stays in the menu itself.
  • In “More”: it moves into a More submenu at the end of the menu, one step away, in the same order.
  • Hidden: it never shows.

Drag a row up or down to change the order. Add a Separator puts a line at the top of the list: drag it between the two actions you want to split, and remove a line with the ⊖ button at the end of its row. Restore the Original Menu brings back the original layout of the menu you're editing.

Your changes apply the next time you right-click: there is nothing to save and nothing to restart.

Folia Files: the original context menu of a Markdown file in Documents, from New Folder with Selection down to Show in Finder

A layout to start from

  • If you file things all day, drag Copy To, Move To and Copy Path right under Open.
  • Send the occasional ones to More: View as Hex, Suggest Names…, Create Link, Batch Actions on Photos and Videos….
  • Hide what you never use, such as AirDrop… or Add to Shelf.

Good to know

  • An action still only appears where it applies: Extract Here on an archive, PDF Tools… with a PDF, Open in New Pane on a folder. Its place decides where it goes, not when it shows.
  • The menu never starts or ends with a separator, and never shows two in a row: hide a whole group and its line goes with it.
  • Hiding an action only takes it out of the right-click menu. Move to Trash stays in the File menu with ⌘⌫, and Copy Path in the Edit menu with ⌥⌘C.
  • The same menu opens in every view of a pane (List, Detailed List, Tree, Columns, Icons, Gallery, Branches) and on search results shown in a pane.
  • When a later version adds an action, it takes its place next to its neighbor in the original menu, and the rest of your layout doesn't move.
  • The layout is saved with your other settings, so Settings Backup carries it to another Mac.

Your Quick Actions and Services come along

As in the Finder, the end of Folia Files' menu has Services for the files you clicked: your Automator Quick Actions, the shortcuts with Services Menu ticked and your other apps' services, filtered by the same list in System Settings (except for files on a server). Share lists Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Notes and your apps' share extensions, then More Options…. The file tools page covers the rest of what Folia Files does with your files.

What apps add through Finder extensions only exists in the Finder. Folia Files has its own versions of the most common ones, such as Open in Editor, Copy To, Move To, Extract To and Hide.

Which one to use

  • Fewer items in the Finder's menu: Quick Actions › Customize…, the Services list in the Keyboard settings, app extensions in Login Items & Extensions, and favorite tags in the Finder's settings.
  • One more command: a Quick Action made with Shortcuts or Automator.
  • Your own order, your own groups and a shorter menu: Folia Files, Settings › Context Menu.