• Mac User Folder Location
• Windows 7 Search For Text In File
• Search For Text In Folder Mac
• Search For Text In Excel

The Finder is the first thing that you see when your Mac finishes starting up. It opens automatically and stays open as you use other apps. It includes the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen and the desktop below that. It uses windows and icons to show you the contents of your Mac, iCloud Drive, and other storage devices. It's called the Finder because it helps you to find and organize your files.

Open windows and files

To open a window and see the files on your Mac, switch to the Finder by clicking the Finder icon (pictured above) in the Dock. Switching to the Finder also reveals any Finder windows that might be hidden behind the windows of other apps. You can drag to resize windows and use the buttons to close , minimize , or maximize windows. Learn more about managing windows.

To search for files on your computer using Windows XP’s search feature, select Start, Search. In the window that opens up, you will see the search assistant on the left, and the results window on the right. Click on “All files or folders” in the Search Assistant area unless you know the type.

When you see a document, app, or other file that you want to open, just double-click it.

Change how your files are displayed

To change how files are displayed in Finder windows, use the View menu in the menu bar, or the row of buttons at the top of the Finder window. You can view files as icons , in a list , in columns , or in a gallery . And for each view, the View menu provides options to change how items are sorted and arranged, such as by kind, date, or size. Learn more about customizing views.

• The Finder is the first thing that you see when your Mac finishes starting up. It opens automatically and stays open as you use other apps. It includes the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen and the desktop below that.
• Linux/Mac Terminal Tutorial: The Grep Command - Search Files and Directories for Patterns of Text - Duration: 20:17. Corey Schafer 15,894 views.

When you view files in a gallery, you can browse your files visually using large previews, so it's easy to identify images, videos, and all kinds of documents. Gallery View in macOS Mojave even lets you play videos and scroll through multipage documents. Earlier versions of macOS have a similar but less powerful gallery view called Cover Flow .

Gallery View in macOS Mojave, showing the sidebar on the left and the Preview pane on the right.

Use the Preview pane

Mac User Folder Location

The Preview pane is available in all views by choosing View > Show Preview from the menu bar. Or press Shift-Command (⌘)-P to quickly show or hide the Preview pane.

macOS Mojave enhances the Preview pane in several ways:

• More information, including detailed metadata, can be shown for each file. This is particularly useful when working with photos and media, because key EXIF data, like camera model and aperture value, are easy to locate. Choose View > Preview Options to control what information the Preview pane can show for the kind of file selected.
• Quick Actions let you easily manage or edit the selected file.

Use Quick Actions in the Preview pane

With Quick Actions in macOS Mojave, you can take actions on a file without opening an app. Quick Actions appear at the bottom of the Preview pane and vary depending on the kind of file selected.

• Rotate an image
• Mark up an image or PDF
• Combine images and PDFs into a single PDF file
• Trim audio and video files

To manage Quick Actions, click More , then choose Customize. macOS Mojave includes a standard set of Quick Actions, but Quick Actions installed by third-party apps also appear here. You can even create your own Quick Actions using Automator.

Use Stacks on your desktop

macOS Mojave introduces Stacks, which lets you automatically organize your desktop into neat stacks of files, so it's easy to keep your desktop tidy and find exactly what you're looking for. Learn more about Stacks.

Search for files

To search with Spotlight, click the magnifying glass in the menu bar, or press Command–Space bar. Spotlight is similar to Quick Search on iPhone or iPad. Learn more about Spotlight.

To search from a Finder window, use the search field in the corner of the window:

When you select a search result, its location appears at the bottom of the window. To get to this view from Spotlight, choose “Show all in Finder” from the bottom of the Spotlight search results.

In both Spotlight and Finder, you can use advanced searches to narrow your search results.

Delete files

To move a file to the Trash, drag the file to the Trash in the Dock. Or select one or more files and choose File > Move To Trash (Command-Delete).

To remove a file from the Trash, click the Trash to open it, then drag the file out of the Trash. Or select the file and choose File > Put Back.

To delete the files in the Trash, choose File > Empty Trash. The storage space used by those files then becomes available for other files. In macOS Sierra, you can set up your Mac to empty the trash automatically.

Smart Folders are one of the most underused features of macOS. Which is a shame, because they make it much easier to find files on your computer.

They can save you a huge amount of time and change the way you use your Mac. But getting them set up properly takes a few steps.

We’ll run through an entire Smart Folders tutorial for Mac users—but first, let’s talk about what Smart Folders really are.

What Is a Smart Folder?

Strangely enough, a Mac Smart Folder isn’t actually a folder. It’s a saved search. But macOS displays these saved searches as folders so they’re easier to find and access.

When you create a Smart Folder, you choose a property or series of properties. macOS then looks through all your files and displays everything that matches this in a single folder, no matter where the files are stored on your computer.

Let’s take a look at how to make a Smart Folder to capture all the files you want in a single place.

How to Use Smart Folders

Open a Finder window and go to File > New Smart Folder.

You’ll get a new window with a search bar that wasn’t present before. You’ll see that you can search This Mac, your current Finder folder, or Shared files. (Selecting This Mac makes the Smart Folder search through every file on your computer.)

To create the search criteria, click the Plus symbol on the right side of the window:

You’ll see two menus; in this case, they’re Kind and Any. You might see another set of dropdowns, like Name and matches. The steps below will work with any combination.

Clicking Kind displays some search parameters. This is the type of smart search you want to run. Default options are kind (file format), last opened date, last modified date, created date, name, and contents.

The Other entry carries many more options, but we’ll talk about those in a moment.

The choices in the second menu depend on what you choose in the first. If you selected Kind, you’ll see a number of file types that you can filter for. If you chose Last modified date, you’ll see some temporal options:

When I choose today, every file that I’ve edited today displays:

Saving and Accessing Smart Folders

You can fine-tune the search by clicking the plus symbol on the right side of the screen and adding more parameters. For example, I could select Kind/Image/PNG to only see the PNGs that were edited today.

To save your Smart Folder, hit Save on the right side of the screen. The default save location is in the User > Library > Saved Searches folder:

You can also add the Smart Folder to your Finder sidebar so you can access it quickly.

Note that you can save the Smart Folder wherever you want. User > Library > Saved Searches isn’t an especially convenient location (as the Library folder is hidden by default), but it does keep them all in the same place.

If you can’t see the hidden Library folder, type this command into Terminal and hit Enter:

That will open the Saved Searches folder. Add either your saved searches or the Saved Searches folder to the Finder sidebar to save time.

How to Delete Smart Folders

Deleting your Mac’s Smart Folders is easy. Just head to the Saved Search folder (using the Terminal command above or any other method you like), select a Smart Folder, and send it to the Trash.

You can’t delete items from the sidebar, so remember this method (or make a shortcut to the Saved Searches folder in the sidebar).

How to Edit Smart Folders

You can change the search criteria for a Smart Folder with just a few clicks. Open the Smart Folder and click the gear in the menu bar. Select Show Search Criteria:

Then edit the criteria as you would normally.

Additional Smart Folder Search Options

When we looked at the search criteria earlier, the final option was Other. Let’s take a closer look at that.

When you select this option, you’ll get a huge range of search criteria. There are too many to list here, but you can include attributes like chat services, alpha channels, whether the file has a custom icon, photo exposure time, musical genre, creating organization, and more.

You can also use the search bar to find attributes quickly. To use one of these attributes, select it and click OK (you can also check the In Menu box to make it display in the dropdown).

We’ll take a look at a few of these attributes next.

The Best Smart Folders You Should Use

Want to take full advantage of Smart Folders? Here are eight that you can start using right now.

1. Files Larger Than 1 GB

Want to clear out those big files that are taking up space on your Mac’s drive3 Free Apps to Analyze & Inspect Your Mac's Hard Disk Space3 Free Apps to Analyze & Inspect Your Mac's Hard Disk SpaceWondering where all of your Mac's storage has gone? These free apps will let you know.Read More? Just use the File Size option and set the size to 1 GB (or whatever size you’d like).

2. DMG Installers to Delete

Disk images can pile up quickly if you install a lot of apps. You can easily find them all with a saved search for File extension/dmg.

3. Apps You Haven’t Opened in a While

By combining Kind/Application with Last opened date, you can look at the apps you haven’t opened in any period of time you’d like. For this example, I’m looking at apps that I haven’t opened in a couple of months.

Maybe it’s time to clean your MacHow to Clean Up Your Mac Desktop and Increase ProductivityHow to Clean Up Your Mac Desktop and Increase ProductivityA cluttered desktop can not only decrease productivity but can also cause cognitive stress. Here's how to clean up your Mac desktop for a better work environment.Read More!

4. Photos Taken on Your iPhone

By adding the Device make attribute to Kind/Image, I’ve limited my search to images that were created by an Apple device. In my case, that’s almost exclusively iPhone photos. You can dig into the settings a bit more to get even more specific by limiting the device models.

5. Files With Specific Tags

Windows 7 Search For Text In File

Tagging files in macOSFind Files Faster and Organize Your Mac With Finder TagsFind Files Faster and Organize Your Mac With Finder TagsFinder tags are a great way to organize data -- here's how to make the most of this handy organization tool on your Mac today.Read More is a great way to keep you data organized. Using Smart Folders, you can get specific tag results. Try combining different tags, searching for specific file types that have a tag, or any other combination of attributes.

6. Recently Created Documents

Want to see all the files you’ve created within the past week or month? The Created date attribute lets you select a time period with ease.

7. All Media Files

When you hold down the Option key, the plus on the right side of the screen turns to three dots. When you click those dots, you’ll get a Boolean operator Smart Folder. Use that to create folders that contain the results of multiple smart searches.

Search For Text In Folder Mac

In this example, if a file is of the kind Image, Movie, or Music, it shows in the Smart Folder. You can use this tactic to get all sorts of combinations of files.

8. Duplicate Downloads

When macOS sees files that have the same filename, it appends a number in parentheses to them. Using a Boolean search to find files than have (1), (2), or (3) in the filename will help you find those duplicate files, no matter where they are.

Use Smart Groupings in Other Apps

Once you’ve created your Smart Folders, you can start using macOS’s smart capabilities in other apps, too. Check out our tutorial on smart group filters to find out how you can make smart contact lists, smart photo albums, and smart mailboxes.

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Explore more about: Mac Smart Groups, Mac Tips, OS X Finder.

Search For Text In Excel

1. Thank's for your explanation. Now I call put Smart Folders to use.

2. Photos taken on the iPhone, and synced via iCloud, do not show up in the Smart Folder. Only those that are contained in the Messages App do.