Apple forums are full with people asking advices on how to find a lost files that they have been working with for a long time. More often the files were not lost; they just don’t know how to find files on Mac. This tutorial will discuss all possible ways of searching for files on any Mac.
When you first set up a Mac, you’ll find a selection of Apple’s apps on the Dock. You can add apps to the Dock, or remove them. To add an app, go to Applications Finder, then drag the app onto. May 09, 2017 Updating won't find your file, but I strongly recommend that you update so that your system works better: Ensure your Mac and Office have the latest updates. Here’s how to install updates: Make sure your Mac has a working internet connection, then: Update Mac OS X. Open the App store and click on the Updates button. Install the updates. A download is pretty much useless if you can't find it on your Mac. But that won't be a problem for you, because we're about to discuss multiple quick and easy ways to locate files on your.
There are 4 applications that you can use to find a file on Mac:
Searching with Spotlight Search
Spotlight Search provides the easiest way of searching for files and folders. Just press Command key and while holding it hit the Spacebar button. This will bring up a Spotlight Search bar.
In this bar, you can type the name of the application if you need to launch one or the name of the lost file. After you type in the name of the file and hit Enter the Spotlight Search will display for any file which matches the text pattern you entered in the search bar.
As you can see on the screenshot below the results window consists of two parts: a list of files found on the left side and a preview pane on the right. You can use Up and Down buttons to move between the files and see the contents in the preview. Why isnt there a gmail app for mac.
If you double tap on the file in search results the file will be opened in the default application. In this case, the default application is the Preview app (as indicated by the Preview icon in the top right of Spotlight Search bar).
If instead of opening in the app you need to locate the folder where the file is then to press the Control button and double tap on the file name.
Additionally, the left pane of the Spotlight search results contains suggested web sites and most importantly “Show all in Finder…” link at the bottom.
If you double tap on this link, then files that were found will appear in a new Finder window.
The Finder search results do not show the parent folder of the file, but it is easy to find the one. Right click on the file name and tap on “Show in Enclosing Folder” option in the context menu (the menu that pops up on right click). If you don’t know how to right click on MacBook trackpad read this simple tutorial.
Searching with the Finder app
Finder provides much more flexibility when it comes to searching files and folders. For instance, if you need to open the Downloads, iCloud, AirDrop, Documents or Library folder you can do it from Finder menu under Go menu item.
To find a file start the Finder app (you can do it by typing Finder in the Spotlight Search). Inside the Finder window hit Command-F and it will open the same window that we’ve seen previously.
Start the search by typing the file name inside the Search bar. The Finder will try to immediately the part of the name typed in the bar and more you type more accurate the search results will be. Notice that by default Finder is searching for files where the name matches the word that was typed in.
In this case, “matches” means that it will look for files where the name contains the search phrase. For instance, if you search for “big” the Finder will display “bigfish”, “abigfish” and “gobig”. It does not matter where in the file name the search phrase appears. Mac screen dimming app.
But what if we need only the files that start with word “big”? In this case, click on a dropdown under “Search: This Mac” line, change it from “Kind” to “Name”, and change “matches” to “begins with”.
Search capabilities of the Finder app are extremely powerful. Let’s review some use cases.
How to find large files
If you’ve been using the MacBook for a long time chances are that it accumulated a lot of unnecessary files. And some of the files could be big and may prevent you from downloading new apps or uploading new photos.
If you need to clean some space on the Mac, the first thing you need is to find the largest files and delete those that you don’t need.
To find the large files first you need to establish what large means. Let’s assume that the large file is 10MB. In order to find files bigger than 10MB start the Finder, hit Command-F. In the Search area expand the dropdown that contains Kind, Name, and other attributes. Click on “Other…” option.
In the new window type “size” in the Search bar and find “File Size” attribute. Check the box under “In Menu” column on “File Size” line. This will add “File Size” to the list of search attributes.
Now choose “File Size” attribute, select “is greater than”, type 10, and finally select “MB” like this:
The Finder will find every file larger than 10MB on your computer.
Find recently modified files
Same technique as when searching for large files, but now change the search attribute (1st element) to “Last Modified Date”. If the attribute is not available to add it by clicking on the “Other” option.
Any date attribute can be limited to the exact date or interval. The Finder conveniently provides some quick dates such yesterday, today, this week, month, year, etc.
Find specific documents
Another useful search attribute is Kind. If you remember that you were working with the Word document, but don’t remember the name of the document then set search attribute to Kind, then select Other, and in the next textbox type “docx”.
As always, there are some shortcuts for most known apps, so you can choose the type of the document, e.g. PDF or Text or Movie.
Find folders
Another supported Kind attribute is Folder. If you need to find folders in the Finder all you need to set the search attribute to type “Kind” and then select “Folder” as a search attribute value.
Searching with Siri
The most exciting way to search is using Siri which was added not long time ago to macOS.
To start Siri for the first time, you need to type “Siri” in Spotlight Search. If Siri was not enabled on your Mac, it will ask your permission to enable. Once started Siri icon will appear in the top menu bar from which you can always summon it by clicking on the icon.
To find the document say “Find document ” and the name of the file. You can always spell the name of the file if needed.
You can even start searching and then keep narrowing the search results. For instance, you can start with “Find files from the last week”.
When Siri displays results narrow the list down by saying “Just ones from Friday”, and narrow even further more by saying “Just Word documents” and the final list will include only Word documents from last Friday.
Searching with Terminal
Finally, geeks can always use the Terminal app to perform the queries in the command line. To find a file that contains the word “touch” start the Terminal app and type following:
sudo find / -name touch
then enter the administrator password.
sudo command will elevate your privileges and require entering the admin password. Of course, you can skip sudo part and type the command starting with find keyword, but if you do this the find command will constantly pop up questions such “Terminal.app want to access Photos. Allow?”.
Other parameters in the Terminal command:
As you can see yourself, the Terminal app is not a particular user-friendly way to search for files. Running mac apps from external drive. Spotlight Search and Finder are much better options.
Advanced search tips and tricks with Finder app
Siri is not the only application that allows narrowing search results. If you need to find any Word document which contains the phrase “tricks” and was modified in the last 3 months, then you need to make a multiple condition search criteria. And it is really easy to do.
First, start with the basic search. Set the search attribute type to “Kind”, set the first parameter value to “Other” and second parameter to “docx”.
Second, click on the plus icon in the right corner of the search bar line. Enter the second search criteria: set the search attribute to “Name”, first parameter to “contains” and the second parameter to “tricks”.
And finally, click on the plus icon again to enter the third search criteria where the search attribute is “Last modified date”, the first parameter is “within last” and second parameter is 90.
The rule with multiple search conditions is that they filter documents that satisfy ALL search conditions. If you don’t need one of the conditions you can remove them by clicking the minus icon.
But what if I need to find documents of multiple types?
For instance, if I need to find any PDF or docx file which contains 2018? If I only use plus when adding search conditions, then Finder will find 0 documents because we are asking to find documents that contain phrase 2018 and at the same time of kind PDF AND docx.
Obviously, a file cannot be both PDF and docx.
The trick in building this type of search is to use Alt (Option) key when adding a new condition.
Find File App Mac Download
First, start with the basic search. Set the search attribute type to “Name”, select the first parameter to “contains” and second parameter to “2018”.
Now hold the Alt (Option) key. The plus icon will change to an icon with three dots. Click on this icon. It will add two lines. The first line is the aggregate rule. You can choose Any (OR), All (AND) or None (NOT) conditions. Leave it to All. In the second line set to search all PDF files and click on the plus icon at the right corner.
In the new line add a search for docx files. The new search query can be read as “Find all documents that contain 2018 AND (document kind is PDF OR document kind is docx)”.
Similarly, you can use None in the query to eliminate some conditions.
Smart folders (Save repeated searches)
After spending so much time crafting the search query you most likely want to save your work. https://hutqxv.weebly.com/blog/best-free-clean-my-mac-apps. The good thing that Mac allows you to do just that. Just click on the Save button at the top right corner.
The Finder will open a window where you can name your search and define if you want it to appear in the Finder sidebar. After you finish, the search will be saved as a so-called Smart Folder.
As we already know smart folder is not a real folder, but rather a saved search condition. The cool thing is that if you create a file which satisfies the search criteria of the smart folder the new file will automatically appear in the smart folder.
This way you can organize all your files so you can always find all you need in less than a second.
Advanced search with Spotlight Search
Spotlight Search can do the same things as the Finder as well. The trick is to know its syntax. For instance, if you want to find all PDF documents with Spotlight Search you can type following in the bar:
kind:PDF Find File App Mac Free
Searching for PDF documents which contain word 2018? Type:
kind:pdf and name:2018
Basically, from the Spotlight Search, you can build almost any query condition like in Finder. The problem is that you need to know and remember the keywords used in the tool. This makes, in my opinion, Finder a much easier tool to find the files.
How to find duplicate files
There are many third-party applications that can help you to find and delete duplicate files. Among them are dupeGuru, Duplicate File Finder Remover from Nektony and Gemini 2: The Duplicate Finder from MacPaw. All three are free.
In case if you don’t want to install another app on your MacBook you can find and delete duplicates yourself with Finder.
Find File App Mac Os
Steps to follow:
Common issues with search in Finder
If you can’t find files, make sure that “This Mac” is selected in the “Search” area. If this was changed accidentally to, say, Desktop then Finder will limit search results to Desktop only.
Topics:
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Get ForkLift, a smart and efficient Finder alternative.
When you look at your desktop, or inside any folder for that matter, on your Mac you’ll see a number (one that will vary depending on how well-organized you are) of file and folder icons. What all of us have in common, however, is a huge range of system files that are hidden just out of view.
Easy way to show hidden files
Try Setapp to make all your files visible on a Mac. With the tools we offer, nothing gets lost in the shuffle.
Those of us who have lived online for long enough will remember the Delete System32 hoax, with which trolls encouraged naive PC users to delete their Windows 2000 system directory. It’s not a shock that, since those days, developers have taken more care to hide away files that are essential to their operating systems.
There are, however, times when you need to access those files. Most of them are hidden away in the ~/Library folder, but the truth is that the average Mac holds a treasure trove of files and folders that you either no longer need or may want to access for troubleshooting purposes.
Is it normal that 'System' takes up 90GB+ of storage? What does it contain? How to get your System folder under control?
Three Ways to See Hidden Files on Mac
There’s good news for anyone out there who’s looking to access hidden files on their Mac: you can do exactly that, in a number of different ways, by arming yourself with a little bit of knowledge. There are a couple of Finder augmentation and replacement apps, for example, that make the process as easy as clicking a single button.
Before kicking off, however, it’s important to highlight that you should play it safe when digging through hidden files on your laptop or desktop. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for you can do some serious damage to your operating system, so you’ll want to proceed with caution. After all, these files are hidden for a reason!
See hidden files on Mac via Finder
As mentioned above, it doesn’t take much to make the hidden files on your Mac visible. In fact, you can check out all of the hidden files on your Mac by following just three easy steps:
This process will also work elsewhere, including your Documents or Applications folders. However, if you know what you’re looking for is in your ~/Library folder and would rather jump straight into that then you can take the following steps instead:
Be prepared for one very cluttered looking Desktop if you decide to uncover all the hidden files there. If you’re anything like the average Mac user, most of what you’ll find will be made up of system files and autosaved Microsoft Word documents!
Some users have reported success finding documents that they thought were lost forever after their Mac crashed without saving, which is always a useful tip to have in the back pocket.
Unhide files on Mac with Terminal commands![]()
Terminal, a Mac command-line interface, is included in macOS by default and allows you to use command prompts to control your Mac instead of following a potentially complex series of instructions to do the same thing in Finder.
If you’re already familiar with using Terminal, then you might prefer to run the following script to reveal your hidden files:
It doesn’t matter too much whether you use Terminal or Finder to make the hidden files on your Mac visible, though you might prefer the latter if you’ve never run scripts on Terminal before, as both routes accomplish the same thing.
One reason you might opt to use Terminal is that it allows you to hide any file or folder on your Mac, which is a great way to avoid that sense of residual curiosity felt by others should they come across a password protected .rar on your desktop! To hide files, just:
To make your files visible again, just repeat the above steps using “chflags nohidden” in place of “chflags hidden.” Of course, the fact that anyone else who knows this trick can also use it to unhide your files means that this isn’t an adequate substitute for other security measures.
Use file managers to access hidden files
How to find the path of a file in Mac? Apps like DCommander and Forklift, both of which perform like native macOS apps and function as extensions of Finder, represent great choices if you’re at all uncomfortable using Terminal or digging around in your ~/Library folder.
Because these apps allow you to make hidden files and folders visible (or invisible) using shortcuts or clicking buttons within the apps, they make the whole process incredibly simple. In Forklift, for example, you can show hidden files by:
There’s also a button in the toolbar to show and hide hidden files. DCommander has a similar function available, with a Show System Files command, but you need to add it manually to the app’s toolbar:
As you might guess from those subtle differences in terminology, we would suggest that Forklift is more suitable for someone looking for something that really looks and acts like Finder. DCommander, with a larger range of features and toolbar buttons enabled by default, is still intuitive but feels a little more dense.
Whichever you settle on remember that just because these apps make accessing hidden files easy it doesn’t mean that you can’t do some real damage if you start messing around with the wrong thing!
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Leave hidden files to automatic cleanup
For some Mac users, the question of how to see hidden files is nothing more than succumbing to curiosity. For others, it’s a necessity for troubleshooting a piece of software or device that’s not performing as it should.
Somewhere in between are those in the pursuit of a few spare gigabytes as their hard drive rapidly fills up. If you’re one of those people looking to clean up useless hidden data then an app like CleanMyMac X might be exactly what you need:
An app like CleanMyMac X will free up space just as effectively, probably more so, than you’ll be able to by randomly deleting hidden files and hoping for the best. If you do end up going this route then don’t consider learning more about hidden content a waste of time — at least you know what to watch out for if someone tries to troll you into deleting vital system files!
Best of all, DCommander, Forklift, and CleanMyMac X apps mentioned above are all available for a free trial through Setapp, a collection of more than 150 macOS apps from top developers all over the world.
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