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Leopard - Optimizing Spotlight Search
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In Leopard, Spotlight has been configured in such a way that it can search much faster than that of Tiger. Some Spotlight searching tricks below will certainly improve your productivity.
Adding Specific Keywords
By typing search terms as described above, you ask Spotlight to search only for certain type of file. However, you still don't know exactly what kind of keywords that can be used for this. Fortunately, Leopard happily provides you with detailed information regarding to that and here we will gladly deliver it to you.
| . | File Type | Keyword |
| 1 | Applications | application, applications, app |
| 2 | Contacts | contact, contacts |
| 3 | Folders | folder, folders |
| 4 | email, emails, mail message, mail messages | |
| 5 | iCal Events | event, events |
| 6 | iCal To Dos | todo, todos, to do, to dos |
| 7 | Images | image, images |
| 8 | Movies | movie, movies |
| 9 | Music | music |
| 10 | Audio | audio |
| 11 | pdf, pdfs | |
| 12 | Preferences | system preferences, preferences |
| 13 | Bookmarks | bookmark, bookmarks |
| 14 | Fonts | font, fonts |
| 15 | Presentations | presentations, presentation |
Focusing Search
Warning : The Spotlight Preference settings on the image above is not under copyright.
Spotlight indexes and searches everything on your Leopard. Though Spotlight returns the search result really quick, you still need to filter the result which will slow you down. Image above displays the path, which is Menubar ▸ Apple ▸ System Preferences ▸ Spotlight Preferences, and the way to enable/disable some of the categories of your Spotlight search, which can be done by ticking/unticking the check boxes.
Determining Action
| 16 | Return | Open highlighted file with default application |
| 17 | Cmd-Return | Open file in Finder |
Most of the time the first action will be taken. However, you still need to aware of the existence of the second action, which will take you to your file location, for performing further action. For more complete keyboard shortcuts, you can refer to my other article, which lists down almost all useful keyboard shortcuts for Leopard, entitle Mac OS X Leopard: 200+ Productivity Booster Keyboard Shortcuts.
Activating Icon View, Quick Look or Slideshow
| 18 | Option-Return | Show all results in Finder |
| 19 | Cmd-A | Select all files |
| 20 | Cmd-Y | Quick Look |
| 21 | Cmd-Option-Y | Full Screen Slideshow |
| 22 | Cmd-1 | Icon view |
If your purpose is to search for images, photos, or movies, you can use Quick Look, which is the new feature in Leopard, Slideshow or Icon view to view all the search results. Combining this with the first trick, adding specific keyword, will further improve your productivity. Also, Show Index Sheet while in Quick Look or Slideshow is advisable.
Double-Quote for Exact Phrase
Whenever you know exactly the phrase that you want to search, don't be hesitate to use Double-Quote. With phrase put in between Double-Quote, Spotlight will return the searching result of several separate words as an unity.
Utilizing Spotlight Window
| 23 | Cmd-Space | Open Spotlight menu |
| 24 | Cmd-Option-Space | Open Spotlight window |
| 25 | Cmd-2 | List view |
| 26 | Cmd-4 | Coverflow view |
There are several benefits you can achieve from utilizing Spotlight window instead of using single Spotlight menu :
- Wider range of results
- Easier to extract more information
- More advance feature, such as sorting results, view as list, or view as the Leopard new feature coverflow
Mastering Logical Expression
| 23 | NOT [term] | Result doesn't contain the term |
| 24 | [term-1] AND [term-2] AND ... AND [term-n] | Result contains all term-1, term-2 up to term-n |
| 25 | [term-1] OR [term-2] OR ... OR [term-n] | Result contains one of the terms |
| 26 | Parentheses | Set the priority of the logical operation (NOT-AND-OR by default) |
| 27 | NOT ([term-1] OR [term-2] OR ... OR [term-n]) | Result doesn't contain all of the terms |
| 28 | NOT [term-1] AND [term-2] OR [term-1] AND NOT [term-2] | Also known as Exclusive-OR, which the result MUST contain one of term-1 and term-2 |
That are many more logical expressions that can be build by using only NOT, AND and OR. However, those above that we listed are really useful and come in handy for your searching activity.
Extra: Calculator
I don't know it's considered time-saving to perform calculator in your Spotlight. But for sure, Spotlight supports this feature. To use Spotlight's calculator, simply put the arithmetic expression to your Spotlight, but you should avoid hitting Return or your Spotlight will launch Calculator for you.
We've tried our best to bring up this article. Feel free to drop comments, we will gladly accept any suggestions.
Related Entries
Some articles taken from our resource base, tightly related to current article, to empower you with more knowledge on tweaking the most out of your Mac.
57 Comments
Dan Madigan
This is very hepful. I didn't know Spotlight could do all that. However, in Tiger I had mail messages excluded in spotlight. In Leopard I do not have mail messages selected in the preferences pane but they show up anyway, cluttering up the results. Any idea why this could be?
MIKO
Awesome advice! It helps a lot. Thanks. I feel empowered.
Marty2000
I tried all kind of keywords and file names, but always ZERO search results. It doesn't matter, what i type, as soon I finish typing kind: all results are already zero. Something i can do wrong? some settings i can't find? Or different keywords for the GERMAN Mac OS X 10.5.6?
Wendy
Hi Marty, I haven't tried it out with German version of Mac. Maybe German word of 'kind' would do the job?
EDL
That's all useful and what not but I generally don't need Spotlight as I know where my files are, a logical folder structure and naming helps.
But what I would need Spotlight for, is searching for files I don't create myself, namely system files, preferences, files installed by applications. If I do need to remove an application for example, I search for the app and that should bring up all files that contain its name. This however only brings up the folder containing it and any eventual files inside that folder. It does not bring up any system or preference files. I still have to manually check multiple folders for leftovers. I know that there are Uninstall apps that would take care of this but they either cost money, are not thorough, cause performance hits by logging all activity in the background or all of the above. So I don't like them and Spotlight could help a lot in that regard.
So my question is; is there any way of having Spotlight search other locations other than the ones defined by Apple (Where does Spotlight search? http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23187)? - Thanks~
EDL
Just found my answer...
http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/07/search-system-folders-with-spotlight.html
Cheers
Gian-Pa
You can also look immediately for filenames instead of content (in Finder) by pressing Cmd-Shift-F cya
Christiane
HELP! How do I search for a file on the network? When I put the file name in Spotlight, it only searches my desktop folders and Entourage. All my working files and folders are on the network and can't seem to be able to search for them with Spotlight.
David Morgan
Actually, this link only tells you how to search SYSTEM folders, which is already one of the Spotlight search options. I used to be able to search within any location I wanted, back when the Find command was truly separate from Spotlight. So what about the original question: How do you search in locations that are more specific than "My Computer" and "Documents"??? FYI, I HATE Spotlight because it makes so many assumptions what "you" want to do, plus, it makes it damn hard to do a lot of things that you might really want. Hmm... maybe was really written by MicroSoft??
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ehh. cognitively.
Benny
for the german users: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/de/15155.html
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If I do need to remove an application for example, I search for the app and that should bring up all files that contain its name. This however only brings up the folder containing it and any eventual files inside that folder
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FYI, I HATE Spotlight because it makes so many assumptions what "you" want to do, plus, it makes it damn hard to do a lot of things that you might really want.
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I feel the same way, Thomas. Spotlight is not my fave.
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Thank you for your tips on optimizing spotlight search. I agree with Thomas, it does make so many assumptions. It makes it hard to do the things you want to do.
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HELP! How do I search for a file on the network? When I put the file name in Spotlight, it only searches my desktop folders and Entourage. All my working files and folders are on the network and can't seem to be able to search for them with Spotlight.
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