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change finder search default (filename not content)?

Old question, but let's see if it's been corrected!

Is there a way to search for file name, rather than content? Rather than needing to hover over the name I typed and then selecting "contains..."

Mac Studio, macOS 12.5

Posted on Oct 20, 2022 2:44 PM

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Posted on Oct 20, 2022 3:53 PM

For searching for file names only I use the shareware app Find Any File. There are several ways to search for the file name:



FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  


The search results is easy to identify where the file is and all it takes is a double click to open ir or open the folder it's in.



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Question marked as Best reply

Oct 20, 2022 3:53 PM in response to CiviB

For searching for file names only I use the shareware app Find Any File. There are several ways to search for the file name:



FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  


The search results is easy to identify where the file is and all it takes is a double click to open ir or open the folder it's in.



Oct 21, 2022 9:11 AM in response to CiviB

There is no means to set a default Finder search for anything. With the proper Spotlight categories selected and drive indexed, you can use Apple's guide to narrow your search results by using the following manual search convention:


name:foo
name:"foo bar"
name:.pdf
kind:word name:bar


The first instance above forces a file search for a case-insensitive, partial name containing the string foo. The second instance looks for a filename containing a white-space naming convention with those two strings in its name. The third example shows all of the PDFs by forcing the file extension into the search, and the fourth finds all Word documents whose name contains the string "bar".


When you just type a word in the search field, without categorizing it with a Spotlight reserved word, then whether using the Finder Window search field or the Spotlight panel, it attempts to search every Spotlight category selected in the Spotlight search results panel including internal document content for that string.


I do not use the third-party EasyFind tool and find everything I want using just Spotlight and its reserved words in my search criteria.

change finder search default (filename not content)?

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