Apple forums are full with people asking advices on how to find a lost files that they have been working with for a long time. More often the files were not lost; they just don’t know how to find files on Mac. This tutorial will discuss all possible ways of searching for files on any Mac.
Use Path Finder's intuitive dual-pane browser to copy files from one pane to the next, with just a single click. Secure Delete Secure delete using 1, 7 or 35 passes on any volume type. The mdfind command will locate files in your user directory, as well as those in the system. In this case, the same file was found as part of an developer application installation in the User. Find hidden junk, large old folders, background apps, and heavy memory consumers. Use CleanMyMac X to free up space on your Mac and tune it for maximum speed. The new version effectively blocks. Finder on Mac is one of the most comfortable ways to get around your Mac and navigate through files and folders. Besides the essential functions that you see in the Finder, there are specific handy tools that can ease your file and folder navigation further.
There are 4 applications that you can use to find a file on Mac:
Application | Method |
Spotlight Search | Hit Command-Spacebar and type the filename |
Finder | Hit Command-F and type filename in Search Bar |
Terminal | type sudo find / -name filename |
Siri | Say “Find document ” and the name of the doc |
Searching with Spotlight Search
Spotlight Search provides the easiest way of searching for files and folders. Just press Command key and while holding it hit the Spacebar button. This will bring up a Spotlight Search bar.
In this bar, you can type the name of the application if you need to launch one or the name of the lost file. After you type in the name of the file and hit Enter the Spotlight Search will display for any file which matches the text pattern you entered in the search bar. Streaming apps for macs.
As you can see on the screenshot below the results window consists of two parts: a list of files found on the left side and a preview pane on the right. You can use Up and Down buttons to move between the files and see the contents in the preview.
If you double tap on the file in search results the file will be opened in the default application. In this case, the default application is the Preview app (as indicated by the Preview icon in the top right of Spotlight Search bar).
If instead of opening in the app you need to locate the folder where the file is then to press the Control button and double tap on the file name.
Additionally, the left pane of the Spotlight search results contains suggested web sites and most importantly “Show all in Finder…” link at the bottom.
If you double tap on this link, then files that were found will appear in a new Finder window.
The Finder search results do not show the parent folder of the file, but it is easy to find the one. Right click on the file name and tap on “Show in Enclosing Folder” option in the context menu (the menu that pops up on right click). If you don’t know how to right click on MacBook trackpad read this simple tutorial.
Searching with the Finder app
Finder provides much more flexibility when it comes to searching files and folders. For instance, if you need to open the Downloads, iCloud, AirDrop, Documents or Library folder you can do it from Finder menu under Go menu item.
To find a file start the Finder app (you can do it by typing Finder in the Spotlight Search). Inside the Finder window hit Command-F and it will open the same window that we’ve seen previously.
Start the search by typing the file name inside the Search bar. The Finder will try to immediately the part of the name typed in the bar and more you type more accurate the search results will be. Notice that by default Finder is searching for files where the name matches the word that was typed in.
In this case, “matches” means that it will look for files where the name contains the search phrase. For instance, if you search for “big” the Finder will display “bigfish”, “abigfish” and “gobig”. It does not matter where in the file name the search phrase appears.
But what if we need only the files that start with word “big”? In this case, click on a dropdown under “Search: This Mac” line, change it from “Kind” to “Name”, and change “matches” to “begins with”.
Search capabilities of the Finder app are extremely powerful. Let’s review some use cases.
How to find large files
If you’ve been using the MacBook for a long time chances are that it accumulated a lot of unnecessary files. And some of the files could be big and may prevent you from downloading new apps or uploading new photos.
If you need to clean some space on the Mac, the first thing you need is to find the largest files and delete those that you don’t need.
To find the large files first you need to establish what large means. Let’s assume that the large file is 10MB. In order to find files bigger than 10MB start the Finder, hit Command-F. In the Search area expand the dropdown that contains Kind, Name, and other attributes. Click on “Other…” option.
In the new window type “size” in the Search bar and find “File Size” attribute. Check the box under “In Menu” column on “File Size” line. This will add “File Size” to the list of search attributes.
Now choose “File Size” attribute, select “is greater than”, type 10, and finally select “MB” like this:
The Finder will find every file larger than 10MB on your computer.
Find recently modified files
Same technique as when searching for large files, but now change the search attribute (1st element) to “Last Modified Date”. If the attribute is not available to add it by clicking on the “Other” option.
Any date attribute can be limited to the exact date or interval. The Finder conveniently provides some quick dates such yesterday, today, this week, month, year, etc.
Find specific documents
Another useful search attribute is Kind. If you remember that you were working with the Word document, but don’t remember the name of the document then set search attribute to Kind, then select Other, and in the next textbox type “docx”.
As always, there are some shortcuts for most known apps, so you can choose the type of the document, e.g. PDF or Text or Movie.
Find folders
Another supported Kind attribute is Folder. If you need to find folders in the Finder all you need to set the search attribute to type “Kind” and then select “Folder” as a search attribute value.
Searching with Siri
The most exciting way to search is using Siri which was added not long time ago to macOS.
To start Siri for the first time, you need to type “Siri” in Spotlight Search. If Siri was not enabled on your Mac, it will ask your permission to enable. Once started Siri icon will appear in the top menu bar from which you can always summon it by clicking on the icon.
To find the document say “Find document ” and the name of the file. You can always spell the name of the file if needed.
You can even start searching and then keep narrowing the search results. For instance, you can start with “Find files from the last week”.
When Siri displays results narrow the list down by saying “Just ones from Friday”, and narrow even further more by saying “Just Word documents” and the final list will include only Word documents from last Friday.
Searching with Terminal
Finally, geeks can always use the Terminal app to perform the queries in the command line. To find a file that contains the word “touch” start the Terminal app and type following:
sudo find / -name touch
then enter the administrator password.
sudo command will elevate your privileges and require entering the admin password. Of course, you can skip sudo part and type the command starting with find keyword, but if you do this the find command will constantly pop up questions such “Terminal.app want to access Photos. Allow?”.
Other parameters in the Terminal command:
- slash (/) is to tell the path to search in. Just slash means search everywhere, but you can limit to a certain folder if you want.
- -name the search phrase included in the filename.
As you can see yourself, the Terminal app is not a particular user-friendly way to search for files. Spotlight Search and Finder are much better options.
Advanced search tips and tricks with Finder app
Siri is not the only application that allows narrowing search results. If you need to find any Word document which contains the phrase “tricks” and was modified in the last 3 months, then you need to make a multiple condition search criteria. And it is really easy to do.
First, start with the basic search. Set the search attribute type to “Kind”, set the first parameter value to “Other” and second parameter to “docx”.
Second, click on the plus icon in the right corner of the search bar line. Enter the second search criteria: set the search attribute to “Name”, first parameter to “contains” and the second parameter to “tricks”.
And finally, click on the plus icon again to enter the third search criteria where the search attribute is “Last modified date”, the first parameter is “within last” and second parameter is 90.
The rule with multiple search conditions is that they filter documents that satisfy ALL search conditions. If you don’t need one of the conditions you can remove them by clicking the minus icon.
But what if I need to find documents of multiple types?
For instance, if I need to find any PDF or docx file which contains 2018? If I only use plus when adding search conditions, then Finder will find 0 documents because we are asking to find documents that contain phrase 2018 and at the same time of kind PDF AND docx.
Obviously, a file cannot be both PDF and docx.
The trick in building this type of search is to use Alt (Option) key when adding a new condition.
First, start with the basic search. Set the search attribute type to “Name”, select the first parameter to “contains” and second parameter to “2018”.
Now hold the Alt (Option) key. The plus icon will change to an icon with three dots. Click on this icon. It will add two lines. The first line is the aggregate rule. You can choose Any (OR), All (AND) or None (NOT) conditions. Leave it to All. In the second line set to search all PDF files and click on the plus icon at the right corner.
In the new line add a search for docx files. The new search query can be read as “Find all documents that contain 2018 AND (document kind is PDF OR document kind is docx)”.
Similarly, you can use None in the query to eliminate some conditions.
Smart folders (Save repeated searches)
After spending so much time crafting the search query you most likely want to save your work. The good thing that Mac allows you to do just that. Just click on the Save button at the top right corner.
The Finder will open a window where you can name your search and define if you want it to appear in the Finder sidebar. After you finish, the search will be saved as a so-called Smart Folder.
As we already know smart folder is not a real folder, but rather a saved search condition. The cool thing is that if you create a file which satisfies the search criteria of the smart folder the new file will automatically appear in the smart folder.
This way you can organize all your files so you can always find all you need in less than a second.
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Advanced search with Spotlight Search
Spotlight Search can do the same things as the Finder as well. The trick is to know its syntax. For instance, if you want to find all PDF documents with Spotlight Search you can type following in the bar:
kind:PDF
kind:PDF
Searching for PDF documents which contain word 2018? Type:
kind:pdf and name:2018
kind:pdf and name:2018
Basically, from the Spotlight Search, you can build almost any query condition like in Finder. The problem is that you need to know and remember the keywords used in the tool. This makes, in my opinion, Finder a much easier tool to find the files.
How to find duplicate files
There are many third-party applications that can help you to find and delete duplicate files. Among them are dupeGuru, Duplicate File Finder Remover from Nektony and Gemini 2: The Duplicate Finder from MacPaw. All three are free.
In case if you don’t want to install another app on your MacBook you can find and delete duplicates yourself with Finder.
Steps to follow:
- Open Finder
- In the Finder go to File -> New Smart Folder
- Click on the plus icon
- Select Kind as search criteria and choose a type of file to find
- In search results click on Name column to sort by name
- Scroll down and whenever you find duplicates right click and move to Trash
Common issues with search in Finder
If you can’t find files, make sure that “This Mac” is selected in the “Search” area. If this was changed accidentally to, say, Desktop then Finder will limit search results to Desktop only.
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Sep 28, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
'I saved my Word document a while back, but it disappeared on my Mac. Can someone please tell me how to find lost documents on a Mac?'
If you are relatively new to the macOS system, then chances are that you might encounter a similar situation as well. Although macOS is quite user-friendly, sometimes it can take a lot of time to find a file or locate a particular folder. Just like Windows or Linux, Mac also presents different ways to find files and browse its local storage system.
In this post, we will teach you how to find folders on Mac as well as recover any lost document on your Mac system as well.
Part 1. How to Find Hidden Files and Folders on Mac Hard Drive?
Ideally, you can browse the internal hard drive or Mac or even explore an external device well. The solution to find lost files on Mac would be the same for almost every major version. Though, there might be some change in the overall interface of the macOS. The following are some of the common techniques that you can follow to find any file on Mac.
1. Use Recent Items to Find Documents on Mac
If you wish to find some recently opened files or folders on Mac, then you can follow this simple approach. The macOS would maintain a record of the recently accessed documents, applications, and sometimes even system processes. Therefore, you can quickly learn how to find lost files on Mac with this approach.
- Just go to the Apple logo on the top left corner of the screen and click on the 'Recent Items' option.
- This will give you a list of the recently accessed folders, apps, and documents. Just click on the icon of your choice to view the file or application.
- Additionally, you can also go to the File menu > Open Recent section to view the recently accessed files. You can clear the history from here or click on any file to access it once again.
2. Check the Downloads Folder to Find Files
Too often, Mac users download something from the internet and later realize that the downloaded document disappeared on Mac. If you also think that the Mac download folder is missing, then consider following these quick steps.
- To start with, go to the desktop on your Mac system and visit the 'Go' section from the main menu. From here, you can visit the 'Downloads' folder on Mac.
- Alternatively, you can also go to your Library and click on the 'Downloads' section from the left panel.
- Once the Downloads folder on Mac has been opened, you can just look for any file of your choice. There is a search tab on the top that can help you do the same in less time. Simply click on it and type the name of the file you are looking for in the Downloads folder.
3. Check the Trash to Find Deleted Files
When we delete something on Mac, the file is not removed from the storage right away. On the contrary, it will be moved to the Trash, from where we can recover the deleted data if we want to. Mac os x sierra allow apps downloaded from anywhere free. Therefore, if you can't find lost documents or folders on Mac, then make sure that you check its Trash before taking any drastic measures.
- Firstly, you need to access the Trash folder on Mac. You can do this by clicking on the Trash icon on the dock.
- When the Trash folder would be opened, you can view all the deleted files that are stored on it temporarily.
- If you wish to recover a file, then select it, and right-click. Click on the 'Put Back' option from the context menu to restore it to its original location.
4. Search the Spotlight to Find Files and Folders
Spotlight is probably one of the most resourceful features in macOS. Since Spotlight has been an evident feature in every major macOS, you won't face the slightest of trouble in finding any file on your Mac system. The feature can be accessed from the desktop and will let you look for files, documents, internet searches, and so much more in one place. If you don't know where to find documents on Mac, then simply follow this drill.
- To access Spotlight, go to your Mac's desktop and click on the search icon on the top right corner of the screen. Here, type the name of any file or folder that you are looking for.
- In no time, the system will start looking for suitable content with respect to the searched keyword. Once you get the results, you can just hover the mouse on the icon to get its preview. Ideally, Mac will let you preview pictures, videos, audios, documents, etc.
- In order to access a file, simply click on it and it will be opened on your Mac system. If you want, you can click on the 'Show All in Finder' option as well to view all the searched results together.
- This will display the relevant results in Finder so that you can find the suitable files and folders that you were looking for.
5. Use Terminal to Find Files and Folders on Mac
The terminal is one of the most useful utility tools in Mac that lets us send direct commands to our system. A lot of users are not able to find any file or folder on Mac which is hidden. In this case, you can take the assistance of Terminal to view the hidden files/folders first. Later, you can go to Finder on Mac to access the data of your choice.
- 3 minutes to read it.
- To begin with, you need to launch the Terminal app. Go to Applications > Utilities and open the Terminal app or look for it from the Spotlight.
- 2. Once Terminal is launched on your Mac, simply copy the following commands and press enter: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE killall Finder
- This will restart Finder and will display all the hidden files and folders on it as well. Now, you can just click on the search icon and enter the name of the files/folder you are looking for. This will let you find files and folders on Mac that are even hidden from the user.
If the content you are looking for is present on your Mac's storage, then you would be able to find it by following the above-listed methods. These techniques will work even if the data has been hidden or deleted so that you can find any file on Mac seamlessly. Though, if your data is deleted or inaccessible, then consider following the next section to find lost files on Mac.
Part 2. How to Find Lost Files on Mac?
There are times when users end up losing their important data on Mac. While there could be different reasons behind it, you can easily find lost documents on Mac by using the right methods.
Why Files Get Lost?
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Before we teach you how to find lost documents on Mac, it is important to know what could have caused the situation in the first place. Here are some of the major reasons for data loss on Mac.
- Sometimes, users end up deleting something accidentally, which gets lost.
- The change in location of the files can make them inaccessible at times.
- A virus or malware attack on the storage can make your files corrupt.
- Chances are that your data could be overwritten by something else.
- The data can be mishandled by a third-party application as well.
- The storage unit or partition can get corrupt or formatted.
- A firmware issue, corrupt update, or any other software-related problem
Recoverit Data Recovery: The Best Mac Lost Partition Recovery Software
No matter what could have caused your files to be lost on inaccessible, you can easily get them back using Recoverit Mac Data Recovery software. It is an extremely reliable and advanced data recovery tool that supports every leading Mac and Windows version. The application is developed by Wondershare and yields positive results in all kinds of data loss scenarios. Also, it is extremely easy to use and will not need any prior technical experience to find lost files on Mac through it.
If you have deleted a partition on Mac or have lost it due to any other reason, then you should use Recoverit Data Recovery. It can help you restore partition data on Mac by following these easy steps.
Step 1: Select a disk
To start with, just launch the Recoverit Data Recovery application on your Mac. Subsequently, the application will identify the inbuilt partitions on your Mac and will provide their list. You can just select a partition of your choice and start the recovery process.
Step 2: Scan the Location
In no time, Recoverit would try to access the lost content from the selected partition. Though, if the partition has been lost, then the quick scan might not yield the needed results. In this case, you can perform a Deep Scan on your Mac to scan the entire storage.
Since it might take a while, it is recommended to wait for the recovery process to be completed. Try not to restart your Mac or close the application when it is performing a deep scan. Mac meeting notes app.
Step 3: Preview and Recover
That's it! Once the process is complete, the application will display the recovered data under various categories. You can view a section from the left panel and preview your data on the right.
In the end, you can select the files you wish to get back and click on the 'Recover' button to save them to a secure location.
In some new macOS versions, third-party applications are not allowed to access the logical partition of the drive. To overcome this, you can reboot Mac in recovery mode and launch Terminal from the utility menu. Type 'csrutil disable' and press enter to disable its System Integrity Protection. Once it is done, restart Mac in the normal mode and run Recoverit Data Recovery again.
Part 3. Tips for Finding Files on Mac
If you don't want to lose your data and learn how to find files on Mac quickly, then consider following these expert suggestions:
- There are all kinds of keyboard shortcuts that you can use while browsing the file system on Mac. For instance, if you have been browsing a directory and would like to go back to the default folder, then press the Command + Shift + H keys. This will take you back to the home instantly.
- Finder in Mac also allows us to set some default folders so that we can access them easily. Just go to the Finder Preferences to set a default folder for quick access.
- The toolbar on Mac already provides a lot of options, but you can further customize it to make it easier for you to find files on Mac. Just go to View > Customize Toolbar and make the needed adjustments.
- You can easily look for a file through the 'Search' bar on Finder. Also, you can sort the displayed data on the basis of different parameters (like size, last modified, etc.) to find files easily.
- Mac also lets us preview files before opening them in order to find the respective content. For instance, you can just select a file and click on the Quick Look button to get its preview in seconds.
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There you go! After reading this guide, you would be able to find any file on Mac without much trouble. We have listed different inbuilt methods to find lost documents on Mac, recover hidden files, and even restore deleted data. If you can't find lost files on Mac via Trash, then consider using Recoverit Data Recovery. It is an advanced and user-friendly data recovery application that will help you get back all kinds of content lost on your Mac. Since the tool is available for free (basic version), you can simply download it on your Mac and use it as per your requirements.
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