Open new Finder tab when using 'open .' in the Terminal

Question

In the Terminal I use open . to open the current directory using Finder.

Open folders in new tabs settings is set in the Finder, yet it opens a new window every time. By the end of a project/day I have dozens of these windows open.

How do I get the Finder to open a new tab, instead of a new window when using open . in the Terminal?

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 13 '21 at 12:50

Probably a bit late, but in case other people are still searching for this. In macOS Big Sur this works: System preferences > General > Prefer tabs > select always from the dropdown menu.

Now open . will open in a new tab in an existing Finder window. It also works from iTerm.

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:04

You cannot use open . to open a new tab in Finder, though it is possible to open a new tab using AppleScript - from How do you duplicate current open Finder view in new tab (Mavericks)?

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    set t to target of Finder window 1
    set toolbar visible of window 1 to true
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "t" using command down
end tell
tell application "Finder"
    set target of Finder window 1 to t
end tell

Alternatively from http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=41624

set docs_path to (path to documents folder) as string
set Sat_folder to docs_path & "Sat:"
set ABC_folder to (Sat_folder & "ABC:") as alias

tell application "Finder"
   activate
   open Sat_folder
end tell

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using command down

tell application "Finder"
   set target of front window to ABC_folder
end tell

Open new Finder tab when using 'open .' in the Terminal

2 Answers2