How to Use Spotlight on Mac

The Spotlight is an effective way to look for your hard drive for a file, email or any other file. You can do so many other things with Spotlight too. Searching for the files is just one of them. With the help of Spotlight, you can look for dictionary definitions, launch apps, perform basic calculations, preview video, audio, documents, and some other files too. You will get to know about several benefits of using Spotlight.
How to perform a basic search on iMac?
  1. Simply Tap in the Spotlight Box and start typing.
  2. Matching results will begin to appear as soon as you type.
  3. Search results will refine continually as you type rest of the search keywords.
  4. You need not to type Return to start your search.
  5. In the spotlight menu, results of your Spotlight menu will appear.
  6. On the Spotlight menu, top 20 most relevant items are grouped into categories like Definitions, Documents, Messages, Folders, Images, etc.
  7. Spotlight guesses items that match your search.
  8. It presents them in a special Top Hit category that shows first.
Search by location or file type.
  1. To use this, Use word Kind and file type, For instance, type- Kind: folders.
  2. Select the file from the list of results to show the location of the file on Mac.
  3. Now Click and hold Command.
  4. The location of the file will show at the bottom of the preview.
  5. Enter Command R to open the location of the file.
  6. Scroll down to bottom of results list for seeing all results from Mac in finder.
  7. Now double click Show all in Finder.
How to personalize spotlight search results?
  1. Hit the menu button on the top left corner of the display.
  2. Tap on System Preferences.
  3. Tap Spotlight.
  4. Hit Checkbox beside the category for changing what Spotlight is going to show you.
  5. If it has a checkmark, the results will be shown.
  6. If it doesn’t have a checkmark, then the results will not be displayed.
How to hide the content from Spotlight search
If you have some sensitive documents that you don’t want on searches, then you may tell spotlight not to look into these locations.
  1. On the top left of the screen, hit Menu button.
  2. Now select System Preferences.
  3. Hit Spotlight.
  4. Go to Privacy tab.
  5. Hit add button.
  6. At the bottom left of the window, hit the add button.
  7. Tap on the items you don’t want Spotlight to search for.
  8. Tap Select.
Find movie showtimes, weather, and nearby places.
  1. Enter the name of the movie that you have to watch to get the showtimes.
  2. Enter Showtimes to see what is playing near you.
  3. Enter weather to get local weather information.
  4. Enter Places to eat to find restaurants nearby.
Sofia Martine is a creative person who has been writing blogs and articles about cyber security.She writes about the latest updates regarding mcafee.com/activate and how it can improve the work experience of users. Her articles have been published in many popular e-magazines, blogs and websites.

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