Spotlight is the lightning fast search engine built into the Mac, but some users may have noticed that once Spotlight has been summoned and a file search query is beginning to be typed, OS X freezes up, stalls, and beachballs for anywhere from 10-30 seconds for seemingly no apparent reason. If you’re in a quiet … Read More
Spotlight search has long been one of the greatest features on the Mac (and iOS for that matter), and now with the latest versions of MacOS (or Mac OS X) the near instant search engine that spans Apple platforms has some new capabilities that make it even more powerful and worthwhile. From being able to … Read More
Mac users who are searching for specific file type and file format matches on their computer can make the job dramatically easier by issuing proper search operators to the Find functions in Mac OS X. File type search operators can be used directly in Spotlight and also in the Finder based search function, and they … Read More
Want to see a movie tonight? Wondering what the showtime are of a movie playing nearby? You can quickly find local movie showtimes by using the Spotlight search feature in Mac OS X. Yes you read that right, the same Spotlight that works as an app launcher and file search engine, can also uncover movie … Read More
You may know that you can quickly jump to websites by typing a domain name into a Spotlight search and choosing the ‘Suggested Website’ option, but did you know you can get a live preview of a webpage from Spotlight on the Mac? This is a fairly simple trick that’s pretty useful, and yes it … Read More
The Mac has long had currency conversion tools available through Calculator app and Dashboard with the Converter widget, but the latest versions of OS X have an even faster option available with Spotlight, which can provide current exchange rates and conversions on the fly. You will need to be running at least OS X 10.10 … Read More
Spotlight is the fantastic search engine built into OS X and iOS, and while most people associate Spotlight searches with finding documents on their Mac or launching applications, the feature set has expanded dramatically since OS X Yosemite. One of the more useful tricks found within the revised Spotlight search is the ability to search … Read More
Spotlight gained many new features and improvements with the latest version of iOS, but along with those changes came a curious bug that seems to randomly prevent Spotlight from working at all on an iPhone or iPad with empty search results.
Being able to quickly access recent work files on a Mac is an obvious productivity booster, but what if you need to find files created or modified on a very specific date? There are a few ways to do this, but one of the fastest tricks is using date search operators in the Spotlight search … Read More
Need to find a system file or several, but you aren’t entirely sure the directory path of where that system item is located on Mac OS? Maybe you’re looking for a plist file and you aren’t sure if it’s in the user Library folder, or the System Library folder? Rather than digging about in the … Read More
It’s easy to wind up with a lot of apps installed on our iPhones and iPads, and if you’ve ever wanted to see every single app on an iOS device you have probably noticed there isn’t any obvious way to do so without connecting to iTunes or looking at the Storage Usage list in Settings. … Read More
Want to quickly search the web or Wikipedia from the Home Screen of iOS? Just turn to Spotlight, the built-in search engine. Sure, the Spotlight search is often used as an application launcher or a way to quickly find old emails, notes, and contacts in iOS too, but you can also type more generic queries … Read More
Spotlight is the wildly useful search feature built into Mac OS X (and iOS) that is accessible by hitting Command+Spacebar. It can seemingly find and do everything, but did you know it also includes basic file system functionality? Using some little known tricks, you can copy and cut files directly from Spotlight, letting you easily … Read More
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
The iOS Spotlight Search feature 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. What if you want to show matching apps first instead? Or maybe you want to list emails or messages as the … 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, operating with a remote machine, or perhaps just would like to use … Read More
