Focus your Search: a Guide to Using Advanced Search Keywords On macOS

for macOS Sequoia

Intro

When performing searches within apps, you can use keywords to narrow your search without having to navigate through popup menus.

This can save you the truble of navigating menus trying to find a similar option to what you could type.

For example, if I wanted to search for all audio in a folder, I would previously type audio. I would then navigate with up/down arrows to find the audio option under kind.

You can directly enter these types of keywords directly into your search.

Where do keywords work?

Keywords work within the Finder Search, Spotlight, and other apps like Mail.

using keywords

Keywords are defined by the keyword, a Colon, followed by the content to search for related to the keyword with no spaces. For example, "kind:music" is written as k, i, n, d, colon, m, u, s, i, c .

For example, ((test kind:document" will search through all documents for the word "test".

You can also search for files modified before a certain date, with, "modified:<=7/1/2022".

Other keywords

kind:

As discussed above, the "kind:" keyword is used to search for a kind of file. You can even search for folders with "kind:folder".

The list of kinds you can search for includes:

• kind:application
• kind:contact
• kind:folder
• kind:email
• kind:event
• kind:reminder
• kind:image
• kind:movie
• kind:music
• kind:audio
• kind:pdf
• kind:system settings
• kind:settings
• kind:bookmark
• kind:font
• kind:presentation

For most of these, you can use the plural form of the word, such as "kind:images" or "kind:pdfs".

to:

Most useful in mail, you can search for emails to a specific person, such as "to:[email protected]".

Also remember that you can add a search term before the keyword, such as "information to:[email protected]".

author:

If a document has author information such as an .ePub file, you could search for the author, like "author:Tom".

You can also use words before the keyword, like "Huck Finn author:Mark". This would search for all documents written by "Mark", which includes additional names like a last name. This means that "author:mark" might turn up results for "Mark Twain", "Mark Brown", etc.

contains:

If you want to search for a file containing a piece of text, you can use the "contains:" keyword.

For example, if you wanted to find a file where "cookies" are talked about, you could search with "contains:cookies".

You could also refine this search with "baking contains:cookies", or "browser contains:cookies".

name:

If you know the name of a file, you can search for it with the "name" keyword.

For example, if you had a file named "test" but you didn't know the kind of the file, you could find it with "name:test".

This would show you all files named "Test", like test.txt, test.docx, test.pdf, test.app, test.wav, test.mp3, etc.

If you knew that your "test" file was a music file, you could find it with "name:test kind:music".

This would surface all test music files, like test.mp3, test.wav, test.caf, etc.

It would not find test.mp4, test.webm, test.pdf, etc. because your "Kind" keyword filters those out with "kind:music".

title:

If a document has title information, such as an mp3 file, you could search for the title.

For example, if "test.mp3" shows it having a title of "Song1", you could search for the title of the song if you didn't know the name of the file with "title:song1".

Again, you could use multiple of these keywords together, such as "test title:song1 kind:mp3".

"AND", "OR", and "NOT" operators

You can use "AND", "OR", and "NOT" operators to refine your search. It should be noted that the operators are in all caps.

AND

If you wanted to search for all music and video files, you could find them with "kind:music AND kind:movie".

OR

The "OR" operator allows you to search for one thing, or the other thing, and not both.

Examples include: "author:Mark OR Author:Marcus"

This searches for anything by Mark, or Marcus.

This will not find documents that were both written by Mark and Marcus. That is where the "AND" operator comes in use.

NOT

If you want to find something and you know it isn't something else, such as searching for "name:test" which isn't an audio file, you could use the "NOT" operator.

For example, "kind:document NOT kind:txt" will find all documents, but not text files.

Likewise, "kind:txt NOT contains test" will find all files that are .txt files and do not contain the word "test".

The Minus sign

Alternative to the "NOT" operator, you could use a dash "-" instead.

For example, "kind:message date:6/29/24-7/25/24 NOT date:7/14/24". This searches for email messages dated from 6/29/24 through 7/25/24, but excludes those dated 7/14/24.

Saving a search, the "Smart Folder"

Now that you have searched for something specific and with a lot of keywords, use a Smart folder to save that search so you don't have to type it again.

1. In the file menu, select "New Smart Folder"
2. Search for what you want to search quickly for in the future.
3. Once you have your search criteria set, click the save button.
4. You will then be asked where you want to save the smart folder. Give it a name and save the smart folder in a spot like the desktop.

• This creates a ".SavedSearch" file which is an XML file which tells the Finder what you searched for.
• Deleting the smart folder will not delete the contents inside of it. It will delete just the ".savedsearch" file mentioned above.

Whenever a new file is added that matches the search criteria that you have set in the smart folder, you will automatically see it in the list.

Conclusion

With these keywords, you can easily make a percyce search and save it for future reference.

There are additional keywords that are available. I didn't list them because I wasn't sure how they were exactly used.

You can find the support article with the additional keywords here.