Couldn't find 'All My File' on Finder's sidebar

I didn't even notice it was gone. Never found it useful.

You can create your own search folder.

With Finder Prefs set to start a search in current folder,

Select your Home folder and type cmd-F

In the criteria, Option-Click on the + button.

Delete the first criteria just leaving the Any of the following are true

Change the first item under Any to Kind is Document

Add additional criteria under Any and set Kind to whatever else you want .

Save it and have it shown in Sidebar.

When you first create a search, there is one criteria listed.

At the right of any criteria line is a + and a - button. If you hold down Option key (labeled "alt" on non-US keyboards), the + turns into …

Click that button and you will be able to make a group of criteria that are either "All of the following" (boolean AND)

or "Any of the following" (boolean OR).

In this case, you want to include many different types of files, so you want it to find files if "Any" of the criteria lines match.

When you do that, the first criteria remains, so delete it if it is not appropriate for your particular set of criteria.

Just because you and others didn't find it useful, doesn't mean the rest of us thought it should go away.

I used "All My Files" every day, several times a day. It was a handy way to find files that weren't "recent." I miss it very much. Apple is often too quick to remove something people liked and used, just because a few users found it redundant. Please, Apple, restore "All My Files," a link SOME PEOPLE found useful.

I spend most of may time on Windows trying to find files that I think I know where I stored them. I never have a problem on macOS.

I get hives just thinking of opening up the Parallels side of my 'puter looking for stuff in the Windows C drive.

For those awaiting the all the files feature from Apple that may or may not come: in the meantime follow Barneys' suggestions

(see sample pic below of searches you can create)

Or just use Spotlight, command + space bar and just type in

.doc

or

.ppt

or

.xl

Mash the return key. You can get results dating back to 1832 BC or thereabouts

Thanks again for the saved search tips, Barney. It is quite handy.

This following would not be my goto option, but I tried Siri "show me all my files" sure enough, up pop 230,000 give or take a few thousand. Click on Finder to get them in the Finder window.

It was very useful in certain situations... I've set up a Smart Folder for files created today (On "This mac") but it is unable to find images in my Pictures folder, seems pretty basic but they're not found.

Murddock wrote:

This option really dont work like the old "all My files" 😟

No, it doesn't. Nor was it meant to. I hated All My Files as it dumped a bunch of useless trash in that folder.

My example was just an example of how to create something useful to you, specific to your needs.

You can tailor the search folder to what works for you.

See Sparkleberry's post. You can see a small subset of the myriad options available.

If someone has the search criteria for "All My Files," then maybe they will post it and you can replicate it exactly.

I liked the 'all my files' as it would always show the most recent things I scanned. I often scan documents and then have to email them or upload them for submission. Having 'all my files' was very useful for me as I didn't have to dig through all my folders to find each document.

'Recents' does not work for me, for some reason. It is showing me documents from yesterday, but not the pages I scanned an hour ago.

I tried making a custom folder (as per Barney's post) - I got something similar to 'all my files' however, it still does not show pages that I scanned today. The most recent items are from yesterday. Can anyone help?

This doesn’t really help me. I’m a writer and used to use All my Files to go back into Chapters and stories I am writing and modifying. I would have thought that Recents would show all the files I had used during the day but it doesn’t it only shows the files modified before the High Sierra update. Has the upgrade changed the files I have used since? The name Recents indicates that you should be able to find your recent work but this is not the case

This doesn’t really help me.

Recents uses different metadata to determine what is included. If that metadata is not set, then the file doesn't show up. It should get set when you open the file in Finder.

It really doesn't matter if this doesn't help, there is no "All My Files" anymore. As Recents doesn't work as anyone expects, you'll have to create your own Search folder as I described above. Add criteria to make it work the way you want. Sort or arrange the search folder by Date Modified and you should see your most recent files at the top of that search folder, if you added sufficient search criteria to get the file types you want to see.

Ok! I have set up a new folder and made the search criteria last opened date within last 2 days /kind is document /created within last 2 days/ modified same and I’m only getting one .docx story and not a new chapter on my book created today

Mominmauritius wrote:

Ok! I have set up a new folder and made the search criteria last opened date within last 2 days /kind is document /created within last 2 days/ modified same and I’m only getting one .docx story and not a new chapter on my book created today

What is the specific criteria you created? Screenshot might be helpful.

From the OP

I found this shortcut is very helpful

From you:

Just because you and others didn't find it useful, doesn't mean the rest of us thought it should go away.

Why is it that everyone here can have an opinion on a feature, except those of us who regularly contribute?

Yes but All My Files was sorted by file size, so it was a very fast way to check your movies and images and apps to see what was the fattest thing you could delete to free up more drive space. The search you're recommending doesn't give you a file size.

Yes but All My Files was sorted by file size

I'm pretty sure it sorted by date modified, but any folder can be sorted and arranged however you'd like with no more than two mouse clicks. You likely changed yours to by size. The folder will keep your desired sort and arrangement.