Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

Searching for and Locating Files

Synopsis

Find a file when I don’t know its name?

Finder → enter a keyword in the Search field in the toolbar → hit Return to start the search

Finder → File → Find (

-F)

Index my hard drive to allow for content-based searching?

Finder → Computer → Macintosh HD → File → Get Info → click on the disclosure triangle next to “Content index” → click on the “Index Now” button.

Note

The Finder does not index filenames—only the contents of files. However, you can still search for filenames.

Find a file when I can’t remember where I saved it?

Use the locate command in the Terminal. However, you must first update the locate database as follows:

[macchuck:~] chuck% cd /usr/libexec
[macchuck:/usr/libexec] chuck% sudo ./locate.updatedb

If you haven’t built the locate database yet, this command could take a few minutes to run; afterwards, you will be returned to the command line.

Note

The locate.updatedb command is executed weekly by default, as noted in the /etc/weekly file. However, you might want to issue this command shortly after installing Mac OS X.

Now you can use the locate command; for example:

[macchuck:/usr/libexec] chuck% locate temp98.doc
/Users/chuck/Books/Templates/temp98.doc
[macchuck:/usr/libexec] chuck%

In this example, we used locate to search for the file temp98.doc; in return, the command tells us where the file is located.

Note

Indexing your hard drive ...