MacBook® All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 4. Searching Everything with Spotlight

In This Chapter

• Mastering basic Spotlight searching skills

• Selecting text and keywords for best results

• Displaying results in the Spotlight window

• Customizing Spotlight settings in System Preferences

Spotlight is Apple's desktop search technology that you can use to find anything on your laptop as quickly as you can type. (Yep, that includes all the documents, Address Book contacts, Mail messages, folders, and drives that your MacBook can access.) In fact, the version of Spotlight included with Snow Leopard can even search folders shared on other Macs across your network! Yes, you read right: If the information is on your MacBook's hard drive, a CD, your network, or even another Mac in your network, consider it located.

This chapter is your ticket to using this new search technology like a professional techno-wizard from day one. I discuss how Spotlight works and how you can use it to locate exactly what you want (and present those results as proudly as a wine steward showing off a fine vintage).

Basic Searching 101

Figure 4-1 illustrates the Spotlight search field, which is always available from the Finder menu bar. Click the magnifying glass icon once (or press

To run a search, simply click in the Spotlight box and begin typing. You see matching items appear as soon as you type, and the search results are continually refined while you type ...