mdfind: Combining kMDItemTextContent & kMDItemContentType

Question

mdfind: Combining kMDItemTextContent & kMDItemContentType

I'm trying to use the Terminal command mdfind to search my file system for text file .rtf containing a certain pattern as in the following example:

mdfind -onlyin '/Volumes/TO Video/Youtube Opere' 'kMDItemTextContent == "Sierra"' && 'kMDItemContentType == "*.rtf"'

This does NOT work: it returns "zsh: no matches found"

But both the following return results as expected!:

a. mdfind -onlyin '/Volumes/TO Video/Youtube Opere' 'kMDItemTextContent == "Sierra"'

returns all files in the folder (even .pdf) containing "Sierra", and most of them are .rtf

b. mdfind -onlyin '/Volumes/TO Video/Youtube Opere' 'kMDItemContentType == "*.rtf"'

returns all .rtf files the folder, no matter what they contain

So I guess I miss something in the mdfind syntax!

May I use "||" or "&&" in a query ? according to (OLD?) description of mdfind they are supposed to work...

Can anybody help me?

Thanks!

Piero

Posted on Jun 22, 2026 12:23 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

127,312 points

Jun 22, 2026 2:07 AM in response to piero.fiorani

Try this:

mdfind -onlyin /Volumes/TO\ Video/Youtube\ Opere 'kMDItemTextContent == "*sierra*"c && kMDItemContentType == "public.rtf"'

One set of single quotes to surround your compound metadata attributes and the trailing 'c' on the *sierra* is a case-insensitive flag.

Note that RTFD content is not searched, nor will it after adding a grouped public.rtf || public.rtfd content types to the above.

Tested: macOS 26.5.1

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

127,312 points

Jun 22, 2026 5:17 AM in response to piero.fiorani

You are welcome. You can omit the wildcard '*' surrounding the search word.

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

127,312 points

Jun 22, 2026 7:02 AM in response to piero.fiorani

If you wanted to search for sierra in RTFD package folders, you could use the menu extras Spotlight tool with:

kind:attach sierra

Or the original RTF search:

kind:rich sierra

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Answer 4

Jun 22, 2026 2:26 AM in response to piero.fiorani

Thanks a lot! Now it works

The trick was the SINGLE set of single quotes to surround my compound metadata attributes!

The addition of "*" and use of c works fine: but it seems to me that when I look for full words avoiding "*" makes the search faster... does it make sense ?

Thanks really!

Piero

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