Quickest way to save new text file to a folder

Question

I have a folder open in finder - what is the quickest way to save a new text file to it?

On Windows I would use "New Text" and then edit the file. On the Mac I open a new file in Sublime or Textedit but then I have to select the folder again when I want to save ...?

Answer 1

You can run the following AppleScript through a service with keyboard shortcut or context menu item.

tell application "Finder"
  set selection to make new file at (get insertion location)
end tell

Alternatively, drag the current directory to Terminal and type touch filename. You can alias the command to something like n for easier activation, and also add closing the Terminal window to the aliased command.

Answer 2

Using terminal would be the quickest, all things considered.

Open a terminal and type cd (including a space) and drop the desired target directory into the terminal window, which will basically input the path directory, and hit enter. Then type nano [filename], which will give you a text file to write in. When you're done, type ctrl-x (not cmd) to exit, and confirm filename to save to by hitting y.

Alternatively you can combine step one and two by entering nano path/to/file.txt.

Answer 3

The quickest way I've found so far is to

• drag the current folder from the Path Bar to Favorites
• in Sublime/Textedit do Save, then select the folder from Favorites

Answer 4

You can add this line to Your .bash_profile file:

alias nf="eval \"cd \\\"\\\`osascript -e 'tell app \\\\\\\"Finder\\\\\\\" to return the POSIX path of (target of window 1 as alias)'\\\`\\\"\" && touch filename.txt && open filename.txt"

Then if You type nf in Terminal.app You will create new txt file in the location of the topmost Finder window and open it with Your default application.