Responsive icon solution when changing icon sizes in OS X Finder I rarely use the Finder outside of list view, but sometimes I need to view a large folder of images to select from. By default, the icons/image previews are not large enough for my needs, so I increase the size of the thumbnail icons in the bottom right of the finder window to determine which image to use. Easy peasy.

When I do this, however, the icons don't cascade down. Instead, I get a scrollbar with icons out of view to the right. This is so Windows 2000. 

My solution is to go to View &gt; Clean Up By &gt; Name and all icons are shown with only up and down scrolling and are the size I want.

Is there some way I can have it so when I increase icon preview size in the Finder, that all images stay inline? 

I don't need to set a default size for all icons to load. I prefer the default size for most use cases, aside from this one. 

See below for an example showing my workflow issue.

tl;dr I want responsive design applied to my finder icons!
You can have the folder contents auto-arranged in icon view via a few settings in View &gt; Show View Options (⌘ Cmd-J).

When you select the files to be Arranged By the criteria you prefer and select Use as Defaults, the icons are automatically re-organised on-the-fly. Note that you don't need to select Always open in icon view, as in the example image below.

These default settings will be used for all folder that don't have folder-specific settings applied, before or after setting the defaults.

You have to restart Finder, e.g. by killall Finder before the new defaults are used.


(Image borrowed from a SuperUser answer)