There have been many attempts over the years to expand on Finder, which some Mac users consider too basic or just too awkward to use when many windows are involved. Cocoatech's Path Finder is the most famous example, offering tabs, dual-pane file-browsing and additional list sorting options; however, Path Finder is essentially a standalone application, and so if you use it you'll find yourself switching between it and Finder proper. TotalFinder isn't nearly as advanced as Path Finder, but it takes the most important components and brings them to Apple's native Finder minus any extraneous interfaces. Tabs, TotalFinder's dual-pane mode and the system-wide Visor are explored in the walkthrough below, so here we'll cover some of TotalFinder's smaller features. Most of these are easily accessible by going to Finder > Preferences, selecting TotalFinder and then clicking the Tweaks tab. Here, you'll see checkboxes and user-definable shortcuts for: showing otherwise invisible system files; Folders on Top, which places folders above files in list views; and Always Maximise, which makes a Finder window full-screen when you click the green 'zoom' button. There's also a Freelance Windows checkbox. When checked, this retains Finder's default behaviour of opening a folder in a new window if it's Command-clicked; if you don't check this, TotalFinder opens Command-clicked folders in new tabs

Read this article:
Tutorial: Add tabs to the OS X Finder and find files more easily