how can i see my recent Finder searches?

In El Capitan, Apple did not store the SGTRecentFileSearches dictionary items in the FInder preferences file. Instead, it is in the GlobalPreferences file.

When I enter the following string in a Finder search entry:

name:.py

It is stored in the SGTRecentFileSearches dictionary as:

where name: is shorthand for kMDItemDisplayName. The previous command-line was just capturing the values attribute of the dictionary, so you would see .py, but not name:.py which was the original context. Trying to reassemble the full search string context would require an application, and not a command-line solution.

The following will work under El Capitan, but not on more recent releases of macOS.

defaults read -g SGTRecentFileSearches | awk '/values =/ {getline;$1=$1;print}'

Dock : Launchpad : Other : Terminal.app. Copy and paste the following scrollable entry to the Terminal, followed by a return. It will list recent searches that you entered in the Finder search entry area. Tested on High Sierra 10.13.6, and Mojave 10.14.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :SGTRecentFileSearches" com.apple.Finder.plist | awk '/name =/ {print substr($0, index($0, $3))}'

This will also work:

defaults read com.apple.Finder SGTRecentFileSearches | awk '/name =/ {print substr($0, index($0, $3))}'