Essential Tips for Using Spotlight

There are some essential tips you need in order to get started with Apple's Spotlight, a few tips and tricks that will definitely ease your learning. Here are a few of the most important.

Start from the Beginning

Spotlight searches from the beginning of words not in the middle of words. With Spotlight you can't type "enice" and expect to find anything about "Venice".

So, the rule is start your search criteria from the beginning of the words you know—any words will work, and you definitely don't need to type the entire word, just be sure to start from the beginning. Later you can learn to search anywhere in a name using a Smart Folder. For now, search from the beginning of words.

Let Go of That Death Grip On Filenames

If you are used to searching your Mac you might be focused on just file names. You might be thinking "What was the name of that file?" or "What was the name of the folder I put it in?" Remember that Spotlight knows how to find using a lot more than file names.

Try typing the name of the person who sent you the file, or something you know about its text, or what kind of file it is or when you last opened it, what you were writing about or anything else you know about the file. File names and folder names are still a great way to search but they are no longer the only way to find things.

Start Thinking in Categories

The Spotlight Preferences list 14 categories of information. If you can't remember anything about an item except that it's a Keynote presentation you can still find it easily with Spotlight. And with Smart Folders you can access every category and type of document on your Mac precisely if you want.

Expand your Mind Beyond "Files"

With Spotlight you can find a lot of things you don't think of as "files". For example you can find Contacts in Address book, Messages in Mail, To Do items in iCal and more, as well as documents and images. The trick is to type anything you know about anything you're looking for.

A good place to start is:

• press Command + Option then tap the Spacebar to open the Spotlight Window
• type anything you know about whatever it is you are looking for

and take a good look at the results.

Forget About Searching and Start Thinking About Organizing

You can:

• make a Smart Folder that shows you all your recently accessed items (you choose what recent means).
• show all the files on your Mac with a particular Color Label and you can add and remove from the group just by assigning a Color Label in the Finder.
• tag files with Spotlight comments and them make and save a Smart Folder that shows (i.e organizes) just them.
• add keywords in iPhoto then use those keywords anywhere you find Spotlight.
• use the Show Properties command in the File menu of Textedit, Keynote, Pages and other apps to set Author, Company, Copyright, Title, Subject, Keywords or Comments. Organize with the properties anywhere you have Spotlight.
• use Smart mailboxes in Mail and Smart Groups in Address Book.
• organize the web pages you are building with the keywords in your META Tags.

The list of how you can view your Mac goes on and on and on...

Realize that Everything Is Connected
and Start Using that Realization

Everything on your Mac is connected through Spotlight. Spotlight knows almost everything about your Mac and every application uses Spotlight. Soooo, you can use any Spotlight feature just about anytime, in any application.

For example, you know you can put keywords on photos in iPhoto. Did you know that thanks to Spotlight you can use those keywords everywhere on your Mac not just in iPhoto?

Try it:

• type one of your iPhoto keywords in the Spotlight Window or Menu.
• open Preview, go to the File -> Open dialog and type one of your keywords in the Spotlight search field there.
• select one of your iPhoto keywords right in an email you are typing, hold down the Control key, click, then choose Search in Spotlight from the Shortcut Menu.

it's kind of surprising to find out you can use your iPhoto keywords anywhere and anytime you want. Now start thinking: the Finder connected to iPhoto to iTunes ot Keynote to Pages to TextEdit to System Preferences to Address Book to Mail to iCal to your web pages to the Terminal, etc., etc., etc.

This is why you get so relaxed when you discover Spotlight—everything is always available and you stop worrying about where everything is—you just use Spotlight to show whatever you want, wherever and whenever you want.

Are your eyes opening up to Spotlight?
Yes = good. No = there is a lot of fun stuff still for you to discover... rl:-)