Spotlight Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Prevent Spotlight from resurrecting your deleted emails on iPhone

by Michael Jones (Aug 18th, 2009)

Note: The problem discussed below behaves differently depending on the type of email account being used. Users of POP mail accounts are indeed noticing a problem with deleted email messages appearing in Spotlight search results. Please see this post for updated information. Our friends over at ...

Mac Automation: Integrating Spotlight searches with your workflows

by Cory Bohon (Mar 30th, 2009)

We've discussed some pretty neat uses for Automator workflows in the past, but did you know you can easily integrate Spotlight searches into your automation workflows? Well, you can, and it might be easier than you think. In this Mac Automation post, I'm going to show you how you can integrate it ...

iPhone 3.0 feature roundup

by Cory Bohon (Mar 17th, 2009)

If you've been listening to all the clamoring on Twitter, or perhaps have seen the updated Apple page, then you know there was an iPhone event today to discuss a new version of the iPhone OS, version 3.0. While you will have to wait until the summer to get the new version (unless you join the ...

Safari 4 beta, a closer look

by Brett Terpstra (Feb 25th, 2009)

After waiting a day for the dust to settle -- and for developers to catch up -- since Apple's release of Safari 4 beta, it looks like there are relatively few show-stopping bugs to talk about. Just about every problem we've heard about at TUAW, and every issue I've had personally, has been an ...

Searchlight goes native on the iPhone

by Brett Terpstra (Nov 11th, 2008)

Gravity Applications has released a native iPhone application to complement Searchlight, their remote search application based on Spotlight. Searchlight previously sported an iPhone-optimized web interface, and the native app builds on that. Some noteworthy benefits of the native app include storing ...

Terminal Tips: Disable Spotlight in menu bar

by Cory Bohon (Sep 23rd, 2008)

Are you tired of accidentally opening spotlight by pressing command + space? With this simple Terminal "hack," you can rid your precious menu bar of Spotlight for once and all. Just open Terminal.app (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and type the following command: sudo chmod 0 ...

Searchlight, remote Spotlight on your Mac or iPhone

by Brett Terpstra (Aug 15th, 2008)

Searchlight 2.0 was officially released last week. Searchlight offers remote Spotlight functionality, allowing you to search your computer's files via a web browser, and it includes an iPhone-optimized interface. I talked with Searchlight's authors, Gravity Applications, during WWDC and got a good ...

Mac 101: Spotlight, your application-launching pal

by Michael Rose (Aug 12th, 2008)

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 ...

Mac 101: organize Spotlight results

by Scott McNulty (Jul 30th, 2008)

Welcome to another entry in our series for new Mac users: Mac 101. This installment brings us to the preference panel of Spotlight, OS X's integrated search that makes finding that needle in your hard drive's haystack as easy as pie (clearly, it doesn't protect against mixed metaphors). You're ...

TUAW Tip: exclude your Time Machine disk from Spotlight indexing

by Scott McNulty (Jul 29th, 2008)

Just the other day I noticed an odd thing: the Spotlight magnifying glass on my MacBook Pro had that little pulsating dot in it that means it is indexing something. That was odd, since I hadn't added any large files to my Mac, nor had I connected an external harddrive. Or did I? As you might be ...

Precipitate: search Google Docs and Bookmarks from Spotlight

by Mat Lu (Jul 9th, 2008)

Google's Mac group has released Precipitate, a plugin which allows you to search Google Docs and Google Bookmarks from the same interface that you search you Mac. It works with both Spotlight and Google Desktop for Mac. Basically the developer's idea is to have a one stop search interface for ...

Mac 101: Tag almost anything in Leopard

by Dave Caolo (May 5th, 2008)

Here's a very simple and even more useful tip from Dennis Best. He's thought of a clever way to tag almost any document he creates in Leopard with Spotlight and a clever use of keywords. When writing a note, composing an email message, etc., he precedes keywords with the ° bullet character ...

Leap 1.0: a peek under the hood

by Brett Terpstra (Mar 3rd, 2008)

Some applications remind me of cars. For example, most Java based applications are Volkswagen Things as they're useful in certain situations, but horrifying (or hilarious) to look at. But once in a while you get a Jaguar XJS: a beautiful exterior that doesn't bely its underlying power. That, and you ...

A (slightly) simpler command-line Spotlight search

by Brett Terpstra (Jan 4th, 2008)

Erica mentioned mdfind a little while ago. It's not a brand new tool, but there hasn't been a great deal of discussion surrounding it. For shell scripters and Terminal junkies, it's a goldmine of search goodness that can make you never want to key out find . -name "letsgogetcoffeewhilewewait.rb" or ...

FileSpot 2.1 released: Supercharged Spotlight interface

by Brett Terpstra (Dec 29th, 2007)

Synthesis Studios has released version 2.1 of FileSpot (formerly MoRU), their advanced interface for Spotlight. It allows you to make advanced, boolean logic queries and makes accessible some of the more complex aspects of Spotlight. Not to make it sound complicated, though, its iTunes-ish interface ...