Why does Finder not wrap when in icon view in some folders?

Question

On Ventura 13.1, when I go to my “Recents” in Finder in icon view, and adjust the horizontal width, the number of columns adjust such that no files extend horizontally beyond the window bounds. This is the normal expected behaviour for me coming from better OSes like Windows and Linux.

When I open any other folder in icon view and adjust the horizontal with, it does not adjust the number of columns, and instead just hides the files/folders outside of the view. In addition, it does not even show a scroll bar to indicate that anything is to the right.

How do I make Finder always wrap the icons such that they do not extend horizontally beyond the window?

Answer 1

Finder gives you the ability to place icons exactly where you want. This can be a double edged sword - you get exactly what you want, but it doesn’t realign automatically when things don’t fit right.

You can have the icons “readjust” to the new window dimensions by using the “Clean Up” function. ^ Control Click (Right Click your mouse) and select *Clean Up” to quickly realign your icons.

If you want this done automatically, you can choose Sort By… in the same context menu and select how you want the icons arranged.

Apple has excellent documentation on interacting with Finder. In this case, the article Align and resize items in icon view on Mac goes into depth on this topic.