This article is intended for enterprise and education system administrators.

Your Mac determines how each window and its contents should appear by collecting file information such as labels, tags, and other forms of metadata.

In macOS Sierra 10.12 and earlier, your Mac gathers all metadata for the files in a folder, compares it to the folder's .DS_Store file, and then displays the folder's contents. In macOS High Sierra 10.13 and later, this behavior is changed slightly: If a folder is sorted alphanumerically, the contents are displayed immediately, then the Finder collects and compares the rest of the folder's metadata.

You can adjust macOS High Sierra 10.13 and later to make browsing faster on network shares, or to force the Finder to gather all available metadata before showing folder contents.