93
votes
Permanently enable to show hidden/system files when searching in Finder
To see hidden files
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder;
- 1,242
51
votes
Accepted
How to make 'grep' work like in Ubuntu?
When the -R option is used, MacOS grep requires you to explicitly give it a directory to search; for example, specify . to recursively search the current directory:
grep -R 'networks' .
- 931
45
votes
Accepted
How do I get a lone missing app to appear in Spotlight searches?
While this does not directly answer as to why that particular app does not appear in Spotlight, nonetheless as a workaround, try the following:
Explicitly exclude the App, via drag and drop from ...
- 57.8k
31
votes
Search not working in Preview.app
I selected the "Table of Contents" in "View Menu" and searched again. It is working. Check the screenshot:
Anyway, make sure that your PDF contains texts and not the image of some texts.
- 489
23
votes
macOS equivalent of the "where" command used in a Windows Command Prompt
The which command prints the most precedent application on the PATH whereas where prints all matching applications on the path.
The difference manifests when you have side by side instances of an ...
- 781
23
votes
Search not working in Preview.app
"BTW, in order to get search working again, you have to close the window (command + w) and reopen on the pdf. Closing Preview all together (command + q) and reopening the pdf doesn't work. This is ...
- 367
22
votes
Accepted
Why didn't reverse grep work to filter out "Operation not permitted" from find results?
find (like most Unix utilities) sends errors to stderr, the pipe listens on stdout only though. So you need to redirect stderr to stdout to make it work.
sudo find / -name 'libpq.dylib' 2>&1 | ...
- 97.9k
21
votes
Does Apple provide a web site with content of `man` pages for the command-line commands bundled with Mac OS X?
Hello from the future world of 2022!
As benwiggy mentioned below, the short answer is https://ss64.com/osx. It's the only reasonably up-to-date, online-viewable, searchable, and cross-referenced ...
- 347
20
votes
How to make 'grep' work like in Ubuntu?
Long term, it's probably best to install the tools based on GNU or run Ubuntu virtually. Both are available for free.
brew install coreutils (to run the brew command you need to install homebrew ...
- 232k
19
votes
How to search a phrase in Preview of OS X?
cmd + f and double quotes search does not work anymore.
As described here Searching for an exact phrase in PDF with Preview one needs to click the magnifying glass icon and select "Exact Phrase&...
17
votes
Accepted
Why is iOS unable to find my apps?
If you are unable to search for apps you could once find, check your settings to see what apps you prevented Search from searching within.
Apple recently changed the behavior of the relevant setting (...
- 11.8k
16
votes
Accepted
Spotlight re-indexing takes too long or doesn't work
OK, I solved it, it seems...
The Solution
Run
sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -...
- 436
15
votes
How to fix Outlook for Mac search
Outlook and macOS's Spotlight (the indexing app) have notorious problems working together. With previous version I had success with the Repair tool that you mention. With Mojave & Outlook 2019, ...
- 7,604
14
votes
Accepted
Weird problems with Safari: search bar and tabs
I had exactly the same (but on Yosemite), and found this (https://discussions.apple.com/message/29693684#29693684) resolved it.
Uncheck Use Safari Suggestions in the Search tab in Safari Preferences.
...
- 256
13
votes
how can I filter out unwanted search results in Alfred (ie node_modules folder, caches)
Go to Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy (TAB)
Then add the folders you want to exclude to that list.
- 131
12
votes
Why do some app spotlight results show the ".app" extension, but not all?
TL;DR
Basically, it's a bug or bug fix introduced in macOS 10.13 High Sierra: Spotlight now respects the Finder setting to show file extensions. Disabling that setting removes the .app extension from ...
- 861
12
votes
Does Apple provide a web site with content of `man` pages for the command-line commands bundled with Mac OS X?
The old online index seems have to vanished. You can however find the source code of manual pages on https://opensource.apple.com/. This site hosts historical versions as well.
For example:
fputs(3) ...
- 221
12
votes
Accepted
Finder not searching files in ~/Library and /Library
You have to include "System Files" in your criteria to search places like the user Library.
To do so, open a search window in Finder cmdF, click on "Kind" and select "Other" and scroll down to "...
- 5,203
11
votes
Accepted
Disable ESC key yielding list of word suggestions when pressed in Preview in OSX 10.11.2
It's the auto completion from the built in spell checker and after a lengthy search I found the solution in Apples Discussion Forums:
defaults write -g NSUseSpellCheckerForCompletions -bool false
...
- 146
11
votes
Accepted
Searching for an exact phrase in PDF with Preview
I can't be sure the following solution will work in your case because it might be different under macOS 13 and I'm running macOS 12.5:
Click the down-arrow head next to the search field in Preview and ...
- 244
10
votes
Search in a particular folder and subfolder through Spotlight
http://osxdaily.com/2013/03/12/change-finder-search-to-look-in-current-folder-rather-than-everywhere-in-mac-os-x/
From anywhere in the Finder, pull down the Finder menu and choose “Preference”
Click ...
- 201
10
votes
Xcode doesn't show up in spotlight results, neither search results
I had a similar problem after upgrading to Xcode 8.3. It simply stopped showing up in the spotlight search result. Rebuilding by adding Application folder to the privacy list in spotlight preferences, ...
- 101
10
votes
Accepted
macOS equivalent of the "where" command used in a Windows Command Prompt
The macOS Terminal equivalent of the Windows Command Prompt command where is which.
Typing which java in my macOS Terminal yields /usr/bin/java, and which git yields /usr/bin/git.
- 431
10
votes
Why is iOS unable to find my apps?
Today I decided to give iOS 11.2 beta 4 a try. Though I hadn't read about this specific change, I was thrilled to see that Apple has addressed this issue! There is now a separate 'Show App' setting ...
- 2,653
9
votes
Spotlight search results priority
System Preferences lets you choose what is displayed, but (since 10.9?) it no longer lets you select the order/priority of results. It would be nice to have that functionality back. I find that I'm ...
- 367
9
votes
Spotlight search bar doesn't show up in middle of screen
Click and hold the Spotlight icon on the menu bar, until the Spotlight window has returned to its original location.
- 129
9
votes
Search across all tabs in iTerm2
Source:
In a window menu, go to Windows -> Exposé All Tabs. This will show you all open iTerm windows on one screen.
All iTerm2 tabs will be shown tiled on the main screen. You can mouse over ...
- 22.7k
9
votes
How can I find an exact string in file contents across many folders from the command line on macOS?
Spotlight allows this and is my favored tool, despite how painful it is to learn how to do this from Apple's documentation alone. The man page for mdfind is almost criminally negligent for not ...
- 232k
9
votes
Accepted
Difference between "matches" and "contains" in search criteria
I have found that an easy way to decipher exactly what Finder means by a query is to save it as a saved search and then inspect that file with a text editor. So in your case open up Finder and make a ...
- 76.5k
9
votes
Why didn't reverse grep work to filter out "Operation not permitted" from find results?
While the first answer is certainly correct, it may be that what the user really wants is simply to drop all of the stderr from the output, which can be done via
sudo find / -name 'libpq.dylib' 2>/...
- 241
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible