There are two types of Mac users in the world: one is who often uses Spotlight, and the other is who ignores Spotlight. If you are the second user, then you need to change. All aspects of Mac usage scenarios will become faster with Spotlight. You only need to enter a few keywords, you can run all the programs you want to run, and you can find all the files you want to find. Using Spotlight, you can quickly find App, documents, pictures, videos and other files with a "shoo" sound, and you can also perform network queries such as Wikipedia, news, weather, maps, etc. (but only in certain areas) .
Start Spotlight
There are two ways to start Spotlight:
- Click the magnifying glass icon on the far right of the toolbar at the top of the screen;
- The faster and more common method is to directly press Command + Space.
Then the Spotlight input box will appear.
Find files with Spotlight
The fastest way to find a file is Spotlight. You only need to enter a few characters of the file name, and Spotlight will immediately show all the files containing this string on the Mac hard drive. If the first search result is what you want, you can directly press Enter to open it. The desired file is below the search list, press the up/down arrow to select back and forth in the list. If you select a picture, video, or document, a preview of these files will appear on the right side of Spotlight. If you want to view all the search results, you can click the bottom "Show all in Finder" and press Enter.
Use Spotlight to find the folder where the file is located
What if you don't want to open the file directly, but want to find the folder where the file is located? It's very simple. Select the item you want to find in the search list, then press Command + Enter, then you can open the folder where the file is located, and the file has been selected.
There is another way to display the full path of the file. Select a search item in Spotlight and press the Command key. A row of small characters will appear under Spotlight. This line of small characters is the full path name of the selected file. If you press Click the folder in that path name while holding the Command, and you will jump directly to the corresponding folder.
In addition, if you don't want to select back and forth in the long list of Spotlight, you can directly press Option + Command + Space to call up Smart Folder, and then enter the string you want to find in the rule input box.
Use Spotlight for mathematical calculations and unit conversion
Spotlight can not only search, but also perform some mathematical calculations and unit conversions. After calling up Spotlight, you can directly enter mathematical formulas in the Spotlight input box to perform calculations, such as 1+2-(5-3)*4 and other more complicated calculations, but you must remember that the input method must be switched, if Inputting brackets and other symbols under the Chinese input method cannot be calculated. You can also use Spotlight to perform unit conversion. For example, enter the length unit 20cm in the Spotlight input box, and all other length unit conversions will appear on the right; for example, enter the currency unit $100, and some other currency conversion amounts will appear on the right.
Customize Spotlight
Sometimes, do you think that Spotlight lists too many suggested options for you when searching with Spotlight? For example, if you only want to search in a certain range, then you can customize Spotlight so that it only lists the range you want to search. Click "System Preferences---Spotlight", the Spotlight setting interface appears
In the "Search Results" option, you can filter Spotlight's result list to show only the categories you specify; in the "Privacy" option, you can add folders and programs in it, so that Spotlight can search It will not be searched in these folders and programs.
Search by file type and file format
Spotlight is more powerful in that you can search only by file type and file format.
If you want to search by file type, you can enter "kind:(file type)" in Spotlight, where "file type" can be "image", "moive", "music", "email", "application" , "Text", "archive", etc. For example, if you want to find a picture, enter kind:image in Spotlight, and Spotlight will list the most recently used pictures. Click "Show all in Finder" below to open all pictures in Finder.
If you want to search by file format, enter "kind:(file format)" in Spotlight, where "format" can be "jpeg", "gif", "pdf", "mp3", "mp4", "zip "and many more. For example, if you want to find a pdf file, enter kind:pdf in Spotlight, then Spotlight will list the recently used pdf files, click the "Show all in Finder" below to open all pdf files in Finder.
You can also search by file type/file format + file name, the syntax is kind:(file type/file format) "file name". For example, if you want to search for a pdf file with "opengl" in the file name, enter kind:pdf "opengl" in Spotlight.
Originally Spotlight could also perform more network queries, such as Wikipedia, maps, stocks, etc., but this function is limited and can only be used in certain areas. My Macbook’s regional setting is "China", and the network function of Spotlight can't be adjusted all the time, which is a small regret. But Spotlight's local search function is very powerful, so using Spotlight well when using a Mac can make your work more effective.