This short guide will show you the amazing capabilities of one of macOS underated features: Spotlight.
What is Spotlight?
Spotlight is a desktop search feature on the built-in on the macOS. It indexes all the local files in your system and present an app to you to quickly search all the files in your system. However, Spotlight has grown to be more powerful than a simple desktop search application. Spotlight has been integrated into the macOS and allow snippet with other macOS first-party apps. In a way, you can use other macOS apps by just using Spotlight
How to get and use Spotlight?
Spotlight is build-in with the macOS so no additional installation is necessary. There are three ways to call on spotlight in macOS
On the top of the macOS desktop, click on the magnifying glass icon and the Spotlight quick search bar will pop-up
The keyboard shortcut is command + space bar. It will get the quick search bar
The search window can be called up with the option + command + space bar keyboard shortcut. However, the search will be limited to just local filenames only.
Spotlight search window. In Terminal, you can use Spotlight from the command line by using the command
mdfind. However, just like the search window, it will be limited to local files only.
Searching on Spotlight
Once you see the quick search prompt, just type in the file name and the results will appear below the quick search prompt. You can do some fuzzy searches like ‘pictures from last friday’
Spotlight integration
Spotlight has been integrated with other macOS app such as Dictionary, Weather, Maps, Contacts and others.
Here are some ways that you can use Spotlight and leverage on app integration
Unit Conversions - Type in like ‘45m to yards’ and it will give you the results. It suggested to get the numerical and unit close together to get the best results. For example search term ‘45m’ would would better than ‘45 meters’
Calculations - You can just type in the mathematical wordings such as ‘42 * 3 / 5’ and it will call up calculator to produce the results.
Weather - You can type in the place and weather keyword, it will bring up the weather app. You can also bring up the zipcode (if you live in the United States) and it will point out to the correct weather.
Web Search - Just type up the search term and it will by default send the search term to your default browser and it will use the default search engine.
Location - Type in a place, and it will shows a mini map of that location. Clicking on directions will bring up the maps app.
Dictionary - type in a word and one of the options will be dictionary. To ensure you get the results faster, start the search term with the keyword ‘define’ such as ‘define greatness’
Quick View - Search the file name and supported files will have a quick preview. Examples of supported files are music, pictures and video.
Under the Hood
Spotlight is represented by the ‘Spotlight’ process in Activity Monitor. However, that is just the Spotlight app and not its indexing service.
Indexing service is represented by the mds and mdworker process. mds is the meta-data server and the mdworker is the meta-data worker process that tracks new files and index them.
You can tweak how Spotlight works in System Preferences. The preferences is very spare by dictating how much info you allow Spotlight to index and what to show in the results pane.
3rd Party App / A Better Spotlight
There are a few companies and open sourced solution to extend the spotlight functionality. The best so far is Alfred by Crayons Inc. It has the free and premium version. The free version does what the System Spotlight does but have a few more interesting feature
One of them is using keywords to launch certain application. For exmaple, entering keyword map will let Alfred know that you want use a mapping application to look for a location. It will suggest popular mapping application (by default Apple Maps and Google Maps) to use. Using the command + (number) will launch that particular app. In this example, typing ‘maps white house’ and command + 2 will launch Apple Maps and show the White House’s location in USA.
A few things that the free version of Alfred does is allow you to control certain mac functions by way of keywords entered. For example, by using the ’lock’ keyword in Alfred quick search prompt, you can immediately lock the screen. Other actions include log off, power off and quit all apps.
Benefits of using the paid version includes setting up workflows, so you have a secret keyword, it can launch a series of actions that you specified. You can also run terminal commands in Alfred prompt, play music from the mini player and actually search clip board history. There is also integration with 1Password, a password manager application.
So apps that extends Spotlight functionality will help you get your task done faster.
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