I wonder how many of us who use Macs use Finder effectively. Over several versions some aspects of the interface changed, which has certainly led to confusion amongst some people.
I've been "using" it for years, but have only just discovered some of the things it can do - and in different versions of the OS - though there might be variants depending on the particular OS version. This is largely because the basic functionality is usually there, but may be hidden. If you don't know what to look for you probably won't find it. The "obvious" menu items probably won't show up anything too useful, and if you do stumble across the right actions, you won't get any visible feedback to let you know where you are, or what you're doing. To exploit what I'm about to describe, you need to know how to turn on things whcih will give you that visible feedback, and then things might become more obvious.
In Snow Leopard it seemed to be easy to use Spotlight to find files. Put in the name, plus date range, plus whatever else seemed helpful, and often out would pop the file(s) searched for. By the time Mavericks came along this didn't seem to work any more, as Spotlight seemed determined to search outside one's own machine. The option "Show all in Finder" started to appear, and eventually there didn't seem to be any point in doing anything other than avoiding this route altogether, and going straight to the Finder.
Seemingly the newer versions of the OS do support a cleverer interface using Spotlight - but I use a variety of different OS versions, so it's useful to know how to get functionality using tools which are available in most of them. See - http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac...emite-3531280/ for suggestions re the newer OS versiosn.
A recent break through for me, which seems to work with most OS versions from Snow Leopard on, is to use Finder to do detailed searches using Smart folders. The problem is finding out how to do it. It's not obvious, or so I believe, in many configurations.
To do a complex search, open up Finder.
Make sure that the Sidebar is visible - that's probably from the View menu.
(**) Across the top, at the RHS there is a search box. Put anything in it, say the word "dog" and watch what happens. It doesn't really matter what word you put in, as we're going to set up a system which allows you to change it for customised searches.
You may get a list of files which match the word, in some way, or possibly not. Don't worry about that - the next bits are more interesting.
A little below that, in a slightly different shade of grey, there's a button labelled "Save". Press it.
Things may change, but chances are you won't notice how.
Look carefully in the sidebar, and you should see something like a gear wheel (might be a sun?), with a phrase such as "Searching ..." or "All my Files".
This is where things do get more interesting ...
Hold down the Ctrl key, and click over the line with the gear wheel in the sidebar. You should see a new menu, which contains things such as
Rename ..., Remove and the one you really want to see "Show Search Criteria". Seledt that one, et voila - a (possibly fairly minimal) set of criteria will appear at the top of the search pane.
Once that has shown up, it's quite easy to add or delete new criteria for search, which enables one to narrow down files which have the right properties - and that's very powerful.
Another thing which is useful to know is that it is possible to get more than one of these searches customised and into the sidebar. However, the way to do this (guess what ....!!!) may differ from OS version to version. In some versions, clicking on the Save button - the Search criteria have to be visible - will give a new menu, which includes an invitation to save the search in the sidebar. In some other versions, this does not appear, so saving simply simply updates the search criteria and overwrites the original search in the sidebar. The solution to this is to rename the search (in the sidebar ...) and then create a new search - again in the sidebar, by following the procedure shown from ** above.
With practice you can get several different searches all in the sidebar, with names which are meaningful to you. This enables you to reuse previous searches, or customise them, or to use previous saved searches to generate new ones.
You may also (some OS versions) find an option to save a search in the Dock. It works, but I haven't found that useful - but that may be OS dependent. It isn't (IMO) so useful because although the Dock makes the search visible, the search doesn't seem to be customisable from that location. It will be, from the sidebar.
Is all this useful? Yes.
Are there any snags? Yes.
This does make general searching a lot easier, but it doesn't always work for all types of search. Using this approach is often more powerful than trying to use the search feature within Mail, which is why using Spotlight in Snow Leopard for instance often finds wanted items much more simply than using the search in Mail, but the situation changes with different OS Versions.
Sometimes the Finder approach doesn't work, yet a search within Mail can locate a wanted email or file attachment to an email. Don't ask me why, but that's the way it is. However, knowing this does help, as one can try the Finder method first, and then if that fails, try doing searches within Mail. Often it is easier to do things that way round, as the searches seem to be more powerful, but sometimes - when it doesn't work - the seemingly more straight forward approach within Mail will locate what's wanted.
OK - now shoot me down, and write that you knew all this, all along.
Enjoy! - as they say somewhere .....
I've been "using" it for years, but have only just discovered some of the things it can do - and in different versions of the OS - though there might be variants depending on the particular OS version. This is largely because the basic functionality is usually there, but may be hidden. If you don't know what to look for you probably won't find it. The "obvious" menu items probably won't show up anything too useful, and if you do stumble across the right actions, you won't get any visible feedback to let you know where you are, or what you're doing. To exploit what I'm about to describe, you need to know how to turn on things whcih will give you that visible feedback, and then things might become more obvious.
In Snow Leopard it seemed to be easy to use Spotlight to find files. Put in the name, plus date range, plus whatever else seemed helpful, and often out would pop the file(s) searched for. By the time Mavericks came along this didn't seem to work any more, as Spotlight seemed determined to search outside one's own machine. The option "Show all in Finder" started to appear, and eventually there didn't seem to be any point in doing anything other than avoiding this route altogether, and going straight to the Finder.
Seemingly the newer versions of the OS do support a cleverer interface using Spotlight - but I use a variety of different OS versions, so it's useful to know how to get functionality using tools which are available in most of them. See - http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac...emite-3531280/ for suggestions re the newer OS versiosn.
A recent break through for me, which seems to work with most OS versions from Snow Leopard on, is to use Finder to do detailed searches using Smart folders. The problem is finding out how to do it. It's not obvious, or so I believe, in many configurations.
To do a complex search, open up Finder.
Make sure that the Sidebar is visible - that's probably from the View menu.
(**) Across the top, at the RHS there is a search box. Put anything in it, say the word "dog" and watch what happens. It doesn't really matter what word you put in, as we're going to set up a system which allows you to change it for customised searches.
You may get a list of files which match the word, in some way, or possibly not. Don't worry about that - the next bits are more interesting.
A little below that, in a slightly different shade of grey, there's a button labelled "Save". Press it.
Things may change, but chances are you won't notice how.
Look carefully in the sidebar, and you should see something like a gear wheel (might be a sun?), with a phrase such as "Searching ..." or "All my Files".
This is where things do get more interesting ...
Hold down the Ctrl key, and click over the line with the gear wheel in the sidebar. You should see a new menu, which contains things such as
Rename ..., Remove and the one you really want to see "Show Search Criteria". Seledt that one, et voila - a (possibly fairly minimal) set of criteria will appear at the top of the search pane.
Once that has shown up, it's quite easy to add or delete new criteria for search, which enables one to narrow down files which have the right properties - and that's very powerful.
Another thing which is useful to know is that it is possible to get more than one of these searches customised and into the sidebar. However, the way to do this (guess what ....!!!) may differ from OS version to version. In some versions, clicking on the Save button - the Search criteria have to be visible - will give a new menu, which includes an invitation to save the search in the sidebar. In some other versions, this does not appear, so saving simply simply updates the search criteria and overwrites the original search in the sidebar. The solution to this is to rename the search (in the sidebar ...) and then create a new search - again in the sidebar, by following the procedure shown from ** above.
With practice you can get several different searches all in the sidebar, with names which are meaningful to you. This enables you to reuse previous searches, or customise them, or to use previous saved searches to generate new ones.
You may also (some OS versions) find an option to save a search in the Dock. It works, but I haven't found that useful - but that may be OS dependent. It isn't (IMO) so useful because although the Dock makes the search visible, the search doesn't seem to be customisable from that location. It will be, from the sidebar.
Is all this useful? Yes.
Are there any snags? Yes.
This does make general searching a lot easier, but it doesn't always work for all types of search. Using this approach is often more powerful than trying to use the search feature within Mail, which is why using Spotlight in Snow Leopard for instance often finds wanted items much more simply than using the search in Mail, but the situation changes with different OS Versions.
Sometimes the Finder approach doesn't work, yet a search within Mail can locate a wanted email or file attachment to an email. Don't ask me why, but that's the way it is. However, knowing this does help, as one can try the Finder method first, and then if that fails, try doing searches within Mail. Often it is easier to do things that way round, as the searches seem to be more powerful, but sometimes - when it doesn't work - the seemingly more straight forward approach within Mail will locate what's wanted.
OK - now shoot me down, and write that you knew all this, all along.
Enjoy! - as they say somewhere .....