What is a saved search query? And can I delete it?

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What is a saved search query? And can I delete it?

I was making some back up disk and created a Saved Search Query. Can the file that's on my desktop be trash? What exactly is this, and what is it's purpose.
Greg

Imac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Posted on Nov 11, 2010 4:28 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Nov 11, 2010 5:05 PM in response to Gregory House

Hi Gregory, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

It's an xml file with Aliases to a previous search criteria.

Selecting "Find..." from the Finder's "File" menu (or typing another user-configurable keyboard shortcut, command-option-space by default) brings up an "advanced" Spotlight search window that includes a field for a search string (treated like the same string typed into the Spotlight menu bar drop-down search field) and any number of additional search conditions.
...
Any search performed in this window can be saved as a "smart folder." This "folder" is actually nothing more than a plain file with a ".savedSearch" file name extension. The file contains an XML serialization of the Spotlight query.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2005/04/macosx-10-4.ars/9

One way you can delete it by going to the Finder>File>Find, click on a Saved Search, click the little Minus icon...

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