Just like you can hold down the back button in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome, holding down the Finder's back button in Lion shows you where you've recently been.

With its iPhones and iPads, Apple has led people toward a new way of operating digital devices that relies on direct manipulation of items with finger gestures, not a mouse and scroll bars. App icons are arrayed front and center, not buried deep in a file system or limited to a strip at the bottom of the screen.

Welcome to another installment of Tips and Tricks. These articles aim to teach you some handy things you might not know about your Apple stuff. Let’s continue the series by looking at Finder.

Dropping Files Onto Applications

If you have a bunch of files you want to open simultaneously with the same application, this trick will save a bit of time. Any files you drag and drop onto the icon of an application in a Finder window will be opened with that program, provided it supports the file type you’re dragging. You can drag and drop more than file at the same time, to help save time. Applications which support the files you’re dragging will be highlighted as you hover over them, and applications which don’t will stay the same. This trick also works the same way with applications in the Dock.

Yeah, that title doesn’t make much sense, does it? Let me explain. I stumbled upon this trick a while ago when I was moving a background Safari window by holding down the command key while dragging. I hit the title of a Safari window, and a popup sprung up showing me a directory list. So, if you command+click a Safari title bar, you get a directory list going back to the root of the site you’re on, like in the image below:

This also works in the Finder: