Change the Text & Icon Size of the Mac OS X Finder Window Sidebar

The font size of the Mac Finder window sidebar is customizable, allowing you to adjust to a larger or smaller font size of both the text and icons found in the Finder sidebars of OS X.

If you’ve been busy customizing the Favorites folders and colorizing the Finder sidebar icons, you might want to change the font and icon size of that sidebar text while you’re at it. This is possible in all semi new versions of OS X, but oddly enough, this isn’t in the “Finder Preferences” or “View Options” where you might expect to find it, and instead the option to toggle sizes is in the general System Preferences.

How to Change Mac Finder Sidebar Text & Icon Sizes

Here’s how to change the text and icon size in the OS X Sidebar easily:

1. Open “System Preferences” from the  Apple menu and click on “General”
2. In the middle of the preference panel, look for “Sidebar icon size” and select one of the three options: Small, Medium, Large
3. Changes take effect immediately, close out System Prefs when you are happy with the

Medium is the default in OS X from 10.11, 10.10, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9, which some people feel is too large, but I think this depends entirely on the Macs screen resolution.

For some comparison, “Small” is the default font size option in OS X 10.6, and the “Large” option isn’t the default in anything yet, but it’s big enough that it’s a great option for those with issues reading the smaller text size, kids, and also for Mac users with huge screen resolutions.