Here’s a great little utility that will help you change your folder colours on macOS Monterey. Normally, all you can really do with your folders is add a coloured tag to them. However, this can make it hard to find what you’re looking for, especially when you’ve got hundreds of blue folders all in your Finder. I’m going to show you a really clever app called Manila, and it’s completely free. This app isn’t on the App Store; instead, you have to follow the link in the description to a GitHub page. Don’t be scared by that; it’s really simple to install!

On this page, all you need to do is press the Download button. Then, press the Downloads button at the top of Safari, and press the little magnifying glass to open that download in the Downloads folder. From here, all you need to do is drag the Manila application into your Applications folder. Then navigate to your Applications folder, find the application called Manila, and double click on it to open. You’ll need to confirm that you’re happy to proceed with opening this since you’ve downloaded it from the internet.

Let me just close down a couple of windows to make it clear on my screen. Okay, now we’re in Manila, there’s one last piece of setup required, and again it’s really simple. Press the Apple menu in the top left corner and go down to System Preferences. From here, you want to find the Extensions setting. I’m going to search in the corner and then click on Extensions. Manila is what’s called a Finder Extension (a bit like a Safari Extension on the web browser) and it adds extra features into Finder. So, we’re going to tick the box to enable this Finder Extension. And that’s all we have to do.

I’m going to close down those windows, and now I’m going into my Finder with these four blue folders. As soon as I right-click on one of these, Manila will ask for one last permission to access these files. Grant that permission, and now on that context menu, there’s a new option called Colour. As quickly as this, you can choose a colour, and boom, that folder is now completely recoloured for you! Again, I can right-click on a different folder (or press ctrl-click) and go onto the Colour menu and choose another colour. Those folders now look instantly recognisable, and it’s much easier to find the folder you need when it’s colour-coded.

I hope you found this video helpful. There are literally hundreds more on my YouTube channel down below, so make sure you head over there now. I’ll see you next time!