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Say I have two apps that match a search in spotlight (e.g. utility), it seems that Spotlight chooses the first application (sorted alphabetically) as the Top Hit. Is there any way to change this so that a different application appears on top?

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If you switch to LaunchBar it'll learn over a short period of time that when you type utility and select the second thing from the list that it should show you that thing first. Spotlight doesn't learn like that. – Ian C.♦ Feb 25 '11 at 17:27
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@Ian are you sure? it seems to me that sometimes, Spotlight was learning from my typing. – Loïc Wolff Feb 25 '11 at 18:15
@Loïc Wolff not 100%. I couldn't find anything online that referenced Spotlight learning and that mirrored my experience which was it never did before I switched to LaunchBar. Example: I just tried to search for 's' in spotlight and the top hit it gave me was App Store despite me never, ever, ever using s to open App Store via Spotlight (I've haven't used Spotlight for a search for anything on this computer in many, many, many months). – Ian C.♦ Feb 25 '11 at 18:30
I love QuickSilver's Set as Default command. – Nathan Greenstein♦ Feb 25 '11 at 18:56
@Loïc Wolff, I have seen this behaviour too. – msanford Feb 26 '11 at 5:00

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Just use some other launcher. Alfred is also good at learning new associations. If for example you select "Disk Utility" after typing "ut", it will become the new default suggestion for "ut". Very low-maintenance.

You could also try Apptivate. It allows you to assign 2-letter shortcuts (like ⌥UT) for launching applications.

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up vote -2 down vote

One way is to drag the application into the Applications folder (if it isn't already there), and rename it so that it appears on top (e.g. - My Utility).

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