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Category: HoudahSpot

HoudahSpot – Powerful File Search for Mac.
Locate hard-to-find files and keep frequently used files within reach.

How-to: Customize the HoudahSpot LaunchBar Action

Objective Development’s LaunchBar is an adaptive app launcher, document browser, and much more.

HoudahSpot is a powerful file search tool. It takes the guesswork out of Spotlight searches and helps you find files hidden deep in the “haystack” of files accumulated over the years.

HoudahSpot 5 includes a LaunchBar action that provides an elegant way to start a HoudahSpot search using LaunchBar. You can install this action from HoudahSpot > Preferences > Extensions.

Screenshot: LaunchBar in action
Start a file search from LaunchBar 6

The action is selected by typing the hs abbreviation in LaunchBar.

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Hidden Gem: New Search – Old Window

In HoudahSpot you can open as many searches – windows or tabs – as you like. Sometimes you end up with more windows than you care for.

You found your file. The search is over. The next search is up. You open a fresh window. But first, you have to close the previous search. But what you actually do is delay housekeeping and clutter your screen with disused HoudahSpot windows.

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HoudahSpot and Default Folder X

HoudahSpot 5.0 works with St. Clair Software’s Default Folder X to deliver files where you need them.

Default Folder X enhances open and save file dialogs on macOS. It provides quick access to favorite folders and recent files. With Default Folder X you can manage and organize files without having to jump over to Finder.

Select “Search with HoudahSpot” from Default Folder X’s Utility menu
Find files: Select “Search with HoudahSpot” from Default Folder X’s Utility menu

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What’s New in HoudahSpot 5.0

HoudahSpot 5.0 is finally here. Yes, it has a new icon. Yes, it supports Dark Mode on macOS Mojave.

HoudahSpot packs a lot of enhancements that have you find files faster than ever before. We looked at every step of the search workflow and made sure HoudahSpot does its best to get you to the files you need.

HoudahSpot 5.0 Dark Mode
HoudahSpot 5.0 Dark Mode

Continue reading What’s New in HoudahSpot 5.0

Quickly Switch Between File Size or Time Units

Searching by file size can be very useful – not only to find and clean out large files, but also to limit search results to files large enough to be relevant.

When you add a new file size criterion to your HoudahSpot search, it defaults to searching for files that match a size you specify in MB. When searching for files larger than 1 GB, you might be tempted to type 1000 so as to avoid reaching for the mouse to change the unit from MB to GB.

Actually, there is a much easier way.

Screenshot: Switch between KB/MG/KB using letter keys
Quickly switch between file size units

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Customize Your HoudahSpot Search Setup

In HoudahSpot, you can choose between hundreds of criteria to search for files. HoudahSpot also lets you specify in which folders to search and how to sort results.

Lots of options to choose from – and settings you don’t want to make over and again.

Search criteria, results display, and sort order are a matter of personal preference and habits. You may, for example, find yourself frequently searching for files by file name extension. You may prefer to search your full hard drive rather than just your home folder. You may want search results to always list file size.

Let’s see how you can set up HoudahSpot so that a fresh search window matches your preferred way of searching.

Continue reading Customize Your HoudahSpot Search Setup

What Search Criteria are Available in HoudahSpot?

When you open HoudahSpot – and have not yet changed the default setup – you will see three preconfigured search criteria in the Refine section:

Preconfigured Search Criteria in HoudahSpot

  • Name – e.g. the file name or the mail subject of Apple Mail messages
  • Text Content – e.g. of word processing documents, presentations …
  • Content Kind – file type like Image, PDF, Mail, Folder …

Continue reading What Search Criteria are Available in HoudahSpot?

Search DEVONthink Databases using HoudahSpot

This post applies to DEVONthink Pro (Office). Users of DEVONthink 3 should refer to the updated version of this post. For DEVONthink 4, refer to the post titled “Supercharge Your DEVONthink 4 Search with HoudahSpot”

DEVONthink is a smart document management solution for Mac. It lets you organize and work with all your documents — bookmarks, email messages, text files, images, PDFs — in one place, regardless where they come from.

Now that you have all your documents stored and organized in DEVONthink, you can rely on both DEVONthink and HoudahSpot to always find the piece of information you need.

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Find PDF Files That Need OCR Processing

There is an updated version of this post.

Scanning paper documents to PDF files lets you archive important (and not so important) documents without filling up cabinets.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) makes these scanned documents much more useful than their paper originals. Once a scan has been processed by OCR, the PDF file contains both an image of the document and an invisible text version. The text can then be searched using HoudahSpot.

Unfortunately, you will find that not all of your PDF files have text content. You may have forgotten to run them through OCR. Or you may have received the scanned document from someone else.

How can you find these files and rectify this?

With a little trick, HoudahSpot can find PDF files that lack text content. It is safe to assume that any text contains either a space or a period. Thus, we will be looking for any PDF file that contains neither space or period.

This translates to the following search:

Find PDF files that lack OCR text. The first search field contains a “space” character

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Inspect File Metadata with HoudahSpot

MacOS file metadata holds many useful and diverse file facts. This is not limited to file size, extension or creation date. Depending on the type and the application that created it, there is a whole lot of information available on a file’s properties.

Sender name, duration, f-stop number – and more

For e-mail messages, this can be sender name, e-mail subject and attachment type. Or duration, bit rate and musical genre for audio files. In photos, you can even find information on camera model, f-stop number and exposure time.

This metadata is useful when organizing files by specific criteria or searching for files with certain properties. E.g. images with a resolution higher than 72 dpi, audios shorter than thirty seconds, or e-mail messages containing PDF attachments.

Inspecting file metadata using HoudahSpot

But what metadata is available for a specific file type? How is it labeled? And what kind of information does it contain? HoudahSpot can help you find out.

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