I will often throw a bunch of files (web pictures, mostly) into a ‘to be filed’ folder for later renaming. The problem, however, is that when I rename a file, the Finder re-sorts the list, moving the renamed file. that forces me to scroll the window to find the next file to be renamed — as it’s now somewhere else in the window.

After all these years, I realized that whether I first sort by file size

in the Finder, the file list stays put and doesn’t jump around so much, making the renaming task much easier.

[robg adds: As of 10.5, you can now sort a column view window, so that trick can work in those windows, too. I’ll confess I’d never thought of that simple solution, despite running into the “jumping files” problem on a regular basis.]

Original post by Mike Schramm