Keyboard-only folder navigation with auto complete

folderskeyboardnavigationsearch

This is one feature of Windows 7 Start menu that I haven't been able to replace in OS X ML.
In Windows:

  1. Press Windows key
  2. Start typing, for example: H:\folder\phot
  3. Use arrow keys to highlight the "search-complete": H:\folder\photos
  4. Press Enter and voila, the folder is opened in Windows Explorer. Similarly for files.

I know that Alfred Powerpack can navigate by keyboard-only, but it is not as intuitive and fast (it doesn't have "search-complete", and it's cumbersome for mounted folders e.g. typing out \Volumes\H\folder\photos).

Best Answer

Finder offers the Go to Folder function (found in the Go menu, or by pressing ⇧⌘G), which allows you to type in a path, and has tab-completion (i.e. typing /us TAB r TAB doc TAB gets /Users/rob/Documents/).

It's not perfect, the main downfall is that it doesn't present multiple options, it just chooses the last alphabetical match (i.e. if you type do, in a folder with Documents and Downloads, it will auto-complete as Downloads), but it is a decent built-in functionality.

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