Advanced Spotlight features

kon21

Registered
I wanted to start a thread that talked about some of the hidden feature I've found and read in Spotlight.

Here we go!

Boolean NOT
------------
First feature I've read is the ability of the Boolean NOT in Spotlight
http://hiram.nl/ipsedixit/artikel/8...ot-in-spotlight

Apple(-Macintosh) will return everything Apple but will exclude if the word Macintosh is in it as well. Be sure there is no space between the words.

Tried it sure enough works great! on content that is. I noticed that it doesn't work if you try to NOT a word that is in the filename. Ohh well.
e.g. filename Resume Leroy Jenkins.doc, if you enter Resume(-Leroy), the file still comes up in the results.

Search in filename only
----------------------
Next trick I found is the ability to search only in the filename.
Just put the "words" in quotes. Works great!! Only tried it with one word so far.

Jump to Top Hit
---------------
Once spotlight finds the file you want as a Top Hit, instead of hitting down arrow twice and then enter, just hit cmd-enter, that will jump to Top Hit and launch it.

Open containing folder
---------------------
Similar to the trick above, if you down arrow to the file you like and hit cmd-enter, it will take you to the folder the file resides.

Finding by Kind
--------------
If you are looking for a file and you know it's a PDF, and only want PDFs to show try, Apple kind:pDF
This works only for PDF right now, I tried doc, gif, etc without success.
You might like to see Apples site that shows other addons.
e.g. kind:app or kind:email date:today

If any one has more please let us know!
 
Spotlight "kind" Keyword List: *(Taken from apple.com)
------------------------------

*Applications
kind:application, kind:applications, kind:app
*Contacts
kind:contact, kind:contacts
*Folders
kind:folder, kind:folders
*Email
kind:email, kind:emails, kind:mail message, kind:mail messages
*iCal Events
kind:event, kind:events
*iCal To Dos
kind:todo, kind:todos, kind:to do, kind:to dos
*Images
kind:image, kind:images
*Movies
kind:movie, kind:movies
*Music
kind:music
*Audio
kind:audio
*PDF
kind:pdf, kind:pdfs
*Preferences
kind:system preferences, kind:preferences
*Bookmarks
kind:bookmark, kind:bookmarks
*Fonts
kind:font, kind:fonts
*Presentations
kind:presentations, kind:presentation

Spotlight "date" Keywords:
--------------------------
Spotlight also lets you zero right in to the information you are
looking for by using date related information. As you know, the
Spotlight window lets you look at your results by date by clicking on
the "Any Date", "Today", "Since Yesterday", "This Week", "This Month"
or "This Year" controls in the results window. But, you can add date
keywords to your search phrase so that the search will only return the
files that have been opened in the date range that you care about. For
example, if you search for "Yosemite date:today", only those items
related to Yosemite that have been viewed today will be listed.

Here's the complete list of date ranges that you can specify:
date:this month
date:this week
date:this year
date:today
date:yesterday
date:tomorrow*
date:next month*
date:next week*
date:next year*

*No, Spotlight isn't totally psychic about the files your colleagues
will send someday. Rather, use next month, week and year for finding
upcoming calendar appointments.
 
Also, if you check

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Resources/MDPredicate.plist

and

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/MDPredicateKeywords.plist

you can infer the list of predicates which can be used.

Cheers,
C
 
Back
Top