Questions tagged [search]
The act of searching for data by providing keywords which are either checked directly against contents, or against a search index in order to provide relevant results.
124 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Highlight all instances of a search in Preview
When I use Command+F to search for a word or phrase in Preview, it finds all instances of the search in the document, but only highlights the matched areas when I click on a specific page on the ...
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How to disable Safari top hit?
As of Safari 13.1 (perhaps earlier versions as well), Safari has changed the search bar behavior: where the first result used to always be "do a search on search engine with the text I entered", the ...
- 221
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How can I stop sharing Find/Replace fields between apps?
For some baffling reason, Apple thinks that whatever I search for in one app will be the same thing that I want to search for in another app. This results in my actual search terms being overwritten ...
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Is it possible to remove Web Searches from Spotlight?
when I am searching anything with spotlight a category Web Searches appears at the bottom of the results. Clicking these links Safari opens and would search the web or wikipedia. But I never use these ...
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Is there a way to search in current folder in file open dialogs?
In normal finder window, I have set it to search in current folder by default.
However, when I want to open a file in the open file dialog, the search is still a global Mac search.
Is there anyway ...
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3
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Is there any app or anyway for mac to search within a video's texts/transcription
This might be a very niche thing, but I have a lot of local and downloaded videos on my Mac that I keep for educational purposes, and was wondering if it's possible to search through the ...
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Exclude files and folders from Finder search
I seek to excluding files when searching in Finder:
When I perform a search in Finder, it will also show system and application files.
I know I can save a search which only searches my user, but I ...
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Is there a suitable alternative to mlocate for macOS?
I would like to replicate the functionality of mlocate (not findutils) from Linux in macOS. I've tried the following alternatives, but each has its own downside:
findutils: only world-readable files ...
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Where is the "raw query" search option in the "New Outlook" for Mac interface (O365)
I'm using a work machine (Catalina) with an Office 365 subscription and gave the "New Outlook" toggle (Outlook 16.45) a go, however, I'm not finding any of the "advanced" search ...
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Finder content search for exact string
In Finder, I have searched for files with a content which contains a string "<tableview ".
Result list has files which content contains strings like " < tableview.frame.height&...
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Finder on macOS: Search works by default with “Name matches” instead of “Name contains”
Is there any possibility to change default behaviour of Search text box in Finder to search with “Name contains” instead of “Name matches”?
I know there is this possibility in advanced searching ...
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Spotlight search of iCloud folder on Catalina is slow - is this normal? What can I do to improve?
Here are the details of my issue:
Since I'm in an all-Apple ecosystem, I've switched to using the iCloud folders as my "general" sync tool (vs FreeFileSync, which I pay the premium for and use when ...
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Shift+Delete macOS equivalent?
So, the particular Shift+Delete that I'm referring to is on a website like Reddit or any website with a search bar, on Windows, one can delete past searches by selecting an item and press the shift ...
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Chrome-like inline search highlighting in Safari?
I just switched over from using Chrome to Safari and I really like it, but I find the search function in Safari very limiting.
Are there any extensions for Chrome-like highlighting in Safari? For ...
- 131
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To search text layers of DjVu -files
I would like to expand the system search to DjVu -files or find an alternative way to do this.
My current OS X is Yosemite 10.10.2 but this can a Unix tool tool.
DjVu contains an OCR text layer, ...
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How do I search Recent Calls on iPhone?
I am looking for a phone number in my history. All I know is the area code 808, which will narrow it down immensely, and its having occurred between a month and two months ago.
How can I search the ...
- 1,777
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Entering text box on iPad goes into “find in page” mode in Firefox/Safari
I’m using an iPad Pro with face ID, with the Apple external keyboard, and a logi mouse.
Using Firefox or Safari, whenever I go into a text input box (like for editing this question, or using Whatsapp),...
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iCloud Mail: how to do keyword search
In iCloud Mail (web access not mail.app) I want to search and apply rules for emails with the word script in the subject though not words with script in it like subscription or prescription. I have ...
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How to use AppleScript to find all emails from the same sender?
My goal is to search mail for all messages in the inbox from a sender, simply by selecting one email and enabling the script. I have succeeded in writing a script that opens all messages from a ...
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macOS Calendar search doesn't work for future events
Spotlight search finds future events, but macOS Calendar search (top right corner search field) does not.
How do I fix this?
- 225
2
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2
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420
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Problem using Numbers Regex.Extract function
I need help with the following Apple Numbers REGEX.EXTRACT formula that doesn’t return the word before a dot. Below are the text form of the arguments passed to the formula and the formula itself as ...
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304
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How to find Couples only photos in Apple Photos
How do I search couples photos? I want to find photos that contains exactly the two people, and no one else.
When we do the following, it provides photos that has both the people, and other folks as ...
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Spotlight: Show recently opened files of application
With macOS Monterey (and before) it was possible in Spotlight to show the recent files of an application before opening the application.
E.g.:
Open Spotlight (Command Space)
Search 'Pages'
Arrow down ...
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2
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488
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Change order of search results (Siri) on modern iOS?
Legacy iOS versions had a Spotlight area in Settings > General to control the order of the results.
I cannot find any such setting on iOS 16. Is it no longer possible? For example, I would like ...
- 3,638
2
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481
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How can I force macOS's "look up" feature to use my default browser to search?
In system preferences, I have my default browser set to Google Chrome.
When I am using Chrome, if I select a word and force-click it, I get the usual dictionary pop-up, but if the word is not found in ...
- 877
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76
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Change Spotlight web search default keybindng
The default keybinding to search the web from Spotlight (⌘ CommandSpace) is ⌘ CommandB.
Is it possible to change it? I haven't even found this keybinding documented on official website. (macOS Mojave ...
- 131
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Menu Bar: Reverse lookup menu item by keyboard shortcut
Searching the Menu Bar by Name
When using the search field in the Menu Bar's help menu, you can look up menu items for the current application by name. For instance, if I search for "Save" ...
- 163
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1
answer
1k
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Remove specific top hits from Spotlight results
For some searches, Spotlight shows strange top hits. I often want to open the "Sound" System Preferences pane using Spotlight. But when I type sound it always shows "DaftCloud for ...
- 937
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59
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Search e-mail message data not including a specific phrase in Outlook
In Microsoft Outlook on MacOS - How do I search for e-mail messages that do not include a specific phrase in the message data, including the header?
Example: I could do a search for "stack" ...
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2
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176
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Add search criteria in the Finder in Catalina
I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15 inches, mid-2015) with a 2.8 GHz Intel quad core i7 processor, now running macOS Catalina 10.15.3.
Before the upgrade, I could do a search as follows. Press ⌘ + F to ...
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2
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Why doesn't iTunes allow to search for podcasts related to Uyghurs?
It just occurred to me while trying to locate an old podcast on Uyghurs that iTunes doesn't allow to filter your podcasts based on that word, but allows to filter podcasts for other words such as ...
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What file types does Finder search the *content* of?
I noticed that the Search bar in Finder not only searches the filenames, but also the contents of some types of files. It appears that the search includes the content of all text files, and even some ...
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153
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Finder search of string erroneously returns no results yet substring correctly returns results
Encountering a really bizarre error on a new iMac (5K, Late 2015) that is running Sierra.
There is a folder called "Job applications" in my Documents folder that shows up in a Finder search of This ...
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165
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The mystery of lost email: why can't Mail.app find some mails in the mailbox?
I have recently upgraded to Yosemite, and eventually to El Capitan. Together with the update I decided to change my mail client from Thunderbird (which I also use on my linux machine) to Apple Mail.
...
- 562
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118
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Enlarging the omnibar in Safari 8
I am using Safari 8.0.2. Safari 8 introduced some really great features, but it made the omnibar tiny - it now occupies less than a third of the toolbar, and it seems impossible to adjust its size. I ...
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Can I make Mail.app search Received: headers?
I'm running 10.6.8 and I set up a smart mailbox with two conditions: one, to look in a specific folder, and two, to match any recipient = [email protected].
Problem:
Mail.app doesn't seem to search ...
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2
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1
answer
494
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Search Numbers spreadsheet for \n
If I search for "\n" in a Numbers spreadsheet, it only shows me any cells that have line breaks in them, it does not show me cells that have "\n" written in them.
Is there any way ...
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2
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1
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551
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Change Siri Search Engine iOS 9
I'm using Siri on an iPad Pro and I've set the default search engine in Settings > Safari to Bing but when I search for something with Siri it defaults to Baidu. I know that the default search engine ...
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62
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Spotlight not returning results for internal iMac drives - ".Spotlight-V100" folder has red forbidden sign
My iMac running [macOS High Sierra][2] has two SSD drives: 256GB with the OS on it and 2TB for data.
Spotlight returns zero results when doing a search on both drives. Also other apps using Spotlight ...
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0
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Can't Search Within Folders on a Drive?
I have a weird Spotlight issue with one of my external drives; I can search the drive as a whole just fine, but if I try to search only a specific folder within it then the search simply doesn't work.
...
- 1,757
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How to get Spotlight working correctly on SMB mounted volumes?
We've been having this strange issue on an 18TB drive that is nearly full (1.4TB available). The larger of the two directories will apparently not stay indexed or available for search once indexed. I ...
- 1,158
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How to troubleshoot why custom Finder search keeps breaking?
I use macOS 12.7.6. I have a custom Finder search (a .savedSearch) that searches a folder for files matching two criteria, Kind is Music (All) and Composer is not Example.
I set this up on an older ...
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Use Smart Folder as default Finder folder
I tried to follow the answer to Use smart folder as Finders default folder, nothing happened for me.
I'm on Mac OS Sonoma Version 14.5 (23F79) with the beta program, but my Terminal seems to just ...
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116
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Safari Search History for Discord username
I had an old friend on Discord and I'm attempting to find their username. I had the account but eventually got locked out of it forever, and I ended up deleting it.
Now, I want to add this person back....
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macOS Sonoma 14.1.2 Finder cannot search files by name in external hard disk
In macOS Sonoma 14.1.2, the Finder cannot search files by part of the file names in some folders, e.g. external harddisk.
For example, the folder contains the following files:
539366.jpg
456.jpg
789....
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40
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Ventura not showing actual file name in search results
When I search for AIF audio files in Finder, it shows me the file name "utf8". This is the media title, apparently. There does not appear to be a way for Finder to show me the file name.
...
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Can Apple Mail perform a server side IMAP search (and if so, how)?
I have a dovecot IMAP server that is configured with full-text-search, including Apache Tika with OCR support. This allows me to search within attachments, including image attachments. Using dovecot ...
- 111
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Using Apple Music's "Up Next" feature from search
I'm using macOS Monterey v12.6.1.
In Apple Music, I can search for a term and it displays many songs that match with this term. How can I play all the songs in this list one after the other as if it ...
- 113
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185
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Search on all sheets in Google Drive on iPhone
In the Google Drive app, I can search all sheets for some text. But it just lists the files containing that text. If I click on a particular spreadsheet, the spreadsheet opens, but it doesn't move to ...
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Can Spotlight index HTML files on Mojave?
Spotlight doesn't index HTML files on my machine. In the prefpane there's no option for webpages or .htm or .html file extensions. Google can't find a plugin for these files. I have 36,703 such files ...
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