How to Search for Files by Name and Content on Mac like Windows

If you’re coming from a Windows environment, you might be familiar with the ability to search for files by content directly from the search bar within a folder. This functionality allows you to quickly find files based on keywords contained within their content. On macOS, there’s a similar feature, but it requires some specific settings. If you want to enable a similar search functionality on your Mac, here’s how you can do it.

How Search Works on macOS

macOS includes a powerful search tool called Spotlight that allows you to search for files by name, metadata, and even content. By default, Spotlight will search filenames and folder names, but it can also search within the files themselves, given the right settings.

Setting Up Search for File Content on Mac

To make sure your Mac is set up to search both filenames and the contents of files, follow these steps:

• Step 1: Open the System Preferences and click on Spotlight.
• Step 2: In the Spotlight settings, make sure that Documents and other relevant categories are checked. This will ensure that Spotlight indexes the contents of your files.
• Step 3: Open the Finder and go to the folder you want to search. In the search bar, type the keyword you’re looking for. By default, this will search both filenames and content.

Refining Your Search

If you want to refine your search further, you can use the following options:

• Use Search Operators: In Finder, you can use the kind: operator to specify the type of files you’re searching for, e.g., kind:pdf for PDFs or kind:text for text files.
• Use the “This Mac” Option: When searching within Finder, you can also switch between searching within the folder or searching “This Mac” to search your entire computer.

Alternative Search Methods on macOS

Besides Finder and Spotlight, you can also use other third-party apps for more advanced searching, such as EasyFind or Find Any File. These tools provide more robust file content searching capabilities compared to Spotlight.

Conclusion

While macOS doesn’t work exactly like Windows in terms of file content searching, it does offer robust search capabilities through Spotlight, and with the right settings, you can easily search both filenames and file content. By following the steps above, you can ensure that your Mac behaves in a similar way to Windows when it comes to searching for files. For even more flexibility, third-party apps can help refine your searches.