Getting Started

Installation

Download the latest .dmg from the download page
Open the .dmg file
Drag FinderGit to your Applications folder
Launch FinderGit from Applications or Spotlight

On first launch, macOS may show a warning because the app is not signed with a Developer ID. Right-click the app and choose “Open” to bypass the warning.

Before first launch (fresh Mac)

FinderGit uses the git binary that ships with the Xcode Command Line Tools. On a brand-new Mac you may need to install them and accept the Xcode license — otherwise every Git action inside FinderGit will surface a nonZeroExit(status: 89, …) error.

Install the Command Line Tools (skip if already installed):
```
xcode-select --install
```
A system prompt will appear — click Install and wait a few minutes.
Accept the Xcode license:
```
sudo xcodebuild -license
```
Scroll with Space, type agree, press Enter.

After these two steps, git works system-wide and FinderGit stops complaining.

Adding your first root folder

When you launch FinderGit for the first time, the sidebar is empty. You need to add at least one root folder — this is a directory that FinderGit will scan for Git repositories.

Click the + button in the toolbar, or go to File → Add Root Folder (⌘ ⇧ O)
Select a directory that contains your projects (e.g., ~/Projects or ~/Developer)
FinderGit will recursively scan for .git directories and display all found repositories

You can add multiple root folders. Each one appears in the sidebar and can be selected individually.

Understanding the interface

FinderGit has three main areas:

Sidebar (left)

Lists your root folders. Click one to show only its contents, or deselect to see everything.

File Browser (center)

An expandable tree view with sortable columns:

Name — file/directory name with system icon
Branch — current Git branch (for repositories)
Status — CLEAN (green), DIRTY (orange), or UNPUSHED (blue)
Changes — number of modified files
Size — file size
Date Modified — last modification date

Click any column header to sort. Click again to reverse the order.

Detail Panel (right)

Shows details for the selected item:

Repository selected — branch info, action buttons (Fetch/Pull/Push), changes list with Stage/Unstage, commit dialog
Sub-directory selected — filtered changes for that directory only
File selected — file info + inline diff (if modified)
Non-git file — basic file info (size, date, type)

Tips

Drop folders from the macOS Finder directly onto the sidebar to add them as roots
Right-click for context-sensitive actions (different for files, directories, and git repos)
Space bar on any selected file for Quick Look. .md and .markdown files open in a native renderer; other file types use the system Quick Look
Use ⌘ + / ⌘ − to zoom the tree view font size
Toggle Git Only in the toolbar to hide non-repository files