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But if you’re longing for the appearance of those title bar icons, the simple settings adjustment will show them all, where ever they are available. It’s not clear why Apple defaults to hiding the window title bar icons on modern MacOS versions for Finder, Preview, and other apps, but presumably it’s to try to offer the minimalist look that the modern MacOS graphical user interfaces are known for. You can always toggle the icons off again too if you’d like, which then reverts to the default appearance: While there is obviously an immediate visual difference, the window title bar proxy icons aren’t just for looks, they actually are usable and can be clicked on, dragged and dropped, and you can even open files in a new app by using the proxy icon, handy advanced features that have been around for a long time on the Mac. The setting change takes effect immediately, so if you have a Finder window open you’ll instantly see the window title bar icon for the currently active folder.Īdditionally, you’ll find the title bar icons available in other apps like Preview as well.

Check the box for “Show Window Title Icons”.

Go to the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”.

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Here’s how you can always see the title bar icons on the Mac again:

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How to Always Show Window Title Bar Icons on Mac But like almost every design challenge, it’s a Goldilocks problem - you can go too far in the other direction, and there is no “just right” that will please everyone.In modern MacOS versions like Monterey, Big Sur, and newer, these window title icons still appear if you hover over the title bar texts, but you can enable a setting in System Preferences to always show the window title bar icons if you’d like.

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Microsoft went overboard for decades of versions of Windows with way too many inscrutable tiny toolbar icons. It’s devilishly hard work deciding what to expose at the top level of a user interface. They said: Even though this document is open in an editing window, you can still do things with the file - here it is.

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Proxy icons in title bars weren’t added to classic Mac OS until version 8.5 in 1998, but they exemplified that philosophy. The Mac’s breakthrough was establishing an interface where you could see - and thus discover through visual exploration - not just what you had done, but what you could do. In a sense, no personal computer interface can out-minimalize an old terminal command line - just a blinking cursor on a black screen, awaiting your commands. This hidden Finder preference for MacOS 11 Big Sur delights me, because in addition to showing proxy icons, it also restores grabbable title bars in MacOS 11.

There’s a one-to-one relationship between a document icon in the Finder and the open application window for that document showing the document icon in the window title bar reinforced that concept. Keeping them visible reminds you that they’re there. But I’d argue strenuously that proxy icons aren’t needless clutter - they’re useful, and showing them by default made them discoverable. (If you think Accessibility is just for people with vision or motor skill problems, you’ve been missing out on some great system-wide settings for tweaking both MacOS and iOS.)ĭoes removing proxy icons from document window title bars reduce “clutter”? I can only assume that’s what Apple’s HI team was thinking. This post from Michael Tsai has documented reactions and tips regarding this change over the last year - including the fact that in the MacOS 12 Monterey betas, proxy icons can be turned back on using an Accessibility setting in System Preferences. File proxy icons in MacOS document windows, for example, disappeared last year in MacOS 11 Big Sur - or rather, were hidden until you moused over them. “ You should only see a button when you need it” seems to explain many of Apple’s recent UI directions. Document Proxy Icons in MacOS 11 and 12 as a – Ahem – Proxy for Apple’s Current UI Design Sensibilities Monday, 19 July 2021

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