Is there some plist I can edit to decrease the number of files that Finder's Get Info function will open separate info windows for?
The number of Get Info windows that will open simultaneously is THIRTY-FIVE. The windows slowly appear one at a time, and once they finally finish appearing I have to close them all one at a time. Pure madness, and whoever chose the default value for this feature should go outside and think about what they've done.
If I get info on thirty-six files, it finally automatically consolidates them into a Summary Info window. I would like to change this threshold of 36 to something reasonable, like 4.
I know about the shortcuts to open the Inspector and Summary Info windows, however sometimes I accidentally forget to hold Option or Control, and I would like to eliminate the possibility of this happening by accident.
A satisfactory alternate solution would be if there were a way to make Get Info always open a Summary Info window instead of opening separate file info windows.
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) running 10.10.5.
Best Answer
At least for 10.7.5-10.9.5 the assumption that the number of Get Info windows is restricted to 35 is wrong.
Instead the screen resolution and the size of the Get Info window seem to be the restricting factors. Using a 1920x1200 px monitor I get 6 windows in a row and 12 rows (= 72 windows).
Trying to get the info on 73 objects and more a summarizing Get Info window will open.
Apparently there is no simple hidden numerical threshold of simultaneously opening Get Info windows.
To simply have an identical behavior for cmdI and altcmdI map cmdI to altcmdI for the Finder.app with a key remapping app.
If you don't want to use a remapping app use System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts and create custom Finder shortcuts: Get Info -> shiftaltcmdI (to disable cmdI) or Get Info -> altcmdI and Show Inspector -> cmdI to swap the shortcuts of Get Info and Show Inspector. The same applies to Get Summary Info (with a different shortcut of course) if you prefer to change that one.
To quickly close all Get Info windows hit altcmdW or for some system versions alt-click on the close button of one of the windows. All other non-Get Info windows will also be closed though.