Where are you? How to find the location of an open document.

There's nothing more frustrating than working on a file, and not knowing where it is in your filesystem.  Sure, you probably know how to save files to a location you specify, but what if you are already working on a file, and need to know where it is?


An example of this might be a mail attachment you've downloaded.  Someone sends you a file that you need to modify, and then you need to send it back.  You open it, work on it and save it, without knowing exactly where you've put it!  It's happened to me before countless times.


Or, maybe you are using the "Open Recent" menu option provided by many programs.  You open the file, work on it and save it, but you have no idea where on your hard drive the file lives.  It's there somewhere, and it's already open!  Where is it?


OS X has a simple way to show you where a document is, no matter what program you are using.


Simply hold down the Command key, and click on the document's icon in the title bar of the current window you are working on.  If you are not working on a document (say, if you are browsing the web) no icon will appear in the window's title bar.  If you are working on a document however, you will see something like this:

If you are working on a document, an icon will appear in the window's title bar.

Hold down the Command key when you click on the icon to see a path to the file.  

Ready for the really cool part?  The menu that displays the filepath is clickable!  Yup.  Once the menu is open, select any one of the folders to instantly open that folder in the Finder.  Once the folder is open, you can manipulate the file as you see fit.  You can even move an open document to another folder, and OS X will keep track of it for you in real-time.


This feature is insanely useful, and something I use all the time.  You'll never need to go hunting for an open document ever again!