Spotlight is the core of Mac OS X’s Search functionality, and if you want Spotlight to ignore a file, folder, or drive, the traditionally recommended advice is to drag the items to exclude from indexation into the Spotlight system preference panel exclusion list. That’s the recommended approach because it’s simple to use and easy to … Read More

Using the search box that sits in the top right corner of a Finder window defaults to searching everything on a Mac. Sure, you can click the center Search option after the fact to narrow it down to the current folder, but often times you’re using that search feature thinking it will look in the … Read More

Whether you’re new to the Mac or just can’t figure out where a specific preference option is buried, you’ll love the convenience of the built-in search function in OS X System Preferences. This is an often overlooked feature that can prevent a lot of frustration when looking for some less-than-obvious settings panels, and it’s very … Read More

Spotlight defaults to showing Contacts from a devices address book as the top search results, which may be helpful but that same feature already exists when searching through Contacts anyway. To get the most out of Spotlight, take the time to change the search priority of results so that what you are most likely to … Read More

Searching the file system for a specific document or file is easy and very fast. Though most users are best served using Spotlight from the menubar, there are times when either Spotlight isn’t working, you need more paramaters, you’re working in the Terminal, or Searching For Files with find The find command is very fast … Read More

For those of us who have a bunch of apps contained within iOS folders, it’s fairly easy to misplace apps that aren’t used often. To quickly find out what folder contains an app, just swipe to the right of the iOS home screen to bring up Spotlight search, then type the name of the app … Read More

Though you can add anything to Spotlights Privacy list to prevent indexing of that folder or file, the obvious problem with that approach is the file or folder is shown within the Spotlight control panel in Mac OS X, making it easy for someone else to find the excluded items. Another way to hide a … Read More

While you can immediately access a dictionary definition by three-finger tapping on a single word in Mac OS X or double-tapping in iOS, the Mac also provides another instant dictionary option: Spotlight. Yup, the good old Spotlight desktop file search also doubles as a full fledged dictionary access point, this is perfect for when you … Read More

From Mac OS X Lion and onward, videos and movie files can be previewed and played directly in the Spotlight search results menu. To try this out for yourself: Hit Command+Space and search for a movie or video file Hover over the video search result until the thumbnail preview pops up to the left Hover … Read More

You can drag and drop files directly from Spotlight to elsewhere in the OS X Finder. To try it out, use Command+Space to search for something, then click and hold on the item while dragging it out of the Spotlight menu. Default behavior moves the file from it’s source location to the new destination, but … Read More