Mac 101: Spotlight, your application-launching pal

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for new and returning Mac users. Love it or hate it, Spotlight's ubiquitous search has changed the Mac OS X experience; quick and (mostly) reliable full-text indexing is now part of the landscape. It's not just for finding files, however; did you know that Spotlight makes a handy application launcher too?

You can launch most any application by hitting the Spotlight hotkey (?-Space by default), then typing the first few letters of the application's name. Chances are it will be the "top hit" for your search, so go ahead and hit Return or Enter to launch it immediately. This approach doesn't have the power-user moxie of third-party launchers like QuickSilver, Butler or LaunchBar, but it's helpful for applications that don't live in your Dock when you want to reach them quickly.

If you've got ideas, suggestions or questions on the Mac 101 front, just let us know below.

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Source: http://tuaw.com/category/mac-101

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Mac 101

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for new and returning Mac users. Love it or hate it, Spotlight's ubiquitous search has changed...

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jmello

I've been using Namely for about two years now, mapped to show when I press Shift-Enter. I don't remember exactly how, but I also made it not show up in the dock, just run silently in the background.

http://amarsagoo.info/namely/

August 14 2008 at 4:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

John

I'm a fairly recent convert to a Mac (I bought my first Macbook with Tiger), so I've always had Spotlight. Because of the ability to launch apps, I have never used QuickSilver.
I don't want to claim that QS is obsolete (I've seen that it's incredibly powerful), but I think that Spotlight for Mac-noobs fills that need.

August 13 2008 at 2:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steve Simitzis

heh. I just tried it, and Spotlight brought up about eight different files with "safari" in the name as the top hit, including various stylesheets, a file called MobileSafariSettings.bundle, and even a few songs.

It eventually settled on a folder called "safari", which turned out to be a TinyMCE plug-in for Safari compatibility.

August 12 2008 at 6:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Steve Simitzis's comment

You should go to system preferences/spotlight and on the search results tab move Applications to the top of the list

August 13 2008 at 8:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Simon Arch

I just tried it myself. The application comes up instantly.

August 13 2008 at 12:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Gabe

I've tried this a few times, but I find Spotlight to be too slow on anything but a current-gen machine. My solution is to drag the Applications folder to the dock, then right click and start typing. It'll hang for a second the first time while it creates the list, but afterwards it's a super-fast app launcher.

August 12 2008 at 5:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jonathan ober

because of spotlight i have changed how i name things when doing projects. i am a website designer/developer and used to have folders with things like website1.psd file. Now I call things by the client name like Apple-website1.psd or Apple-logo1.psd. Now in spotlight I just type their name and boom i get my file. i use it once in a while for opening apps, but all the important ones are in the dock for me.

August 12 2008 at 5:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

nka

You know, this doesn't really qualify as a tip, and I would venture to say that anyone reading tuaw already knows this.

August 12 2008 at 5:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

4 replies to nka's comment

Roberto

I've always wanted to know how to connect my already-once-paired bluetooth stereo headphones to my MacBook. I am tired of running the BT Assistant repeatedly when I intend to enjoy some wireless Pandora.

P.S. I am using the BSH01 BT earphones. They work perfectly every time with my (gasp!) non-iPhone.

August 12 2008 at 4:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply