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Category: Tembo

Tembo – Friendly File Search Assistant for the Mac.
Find documents, mail messages, images, videos, etc.

What’s New in Tembo 3.0?

macOS 11 and 12 have introduced a dramatic new look representing a significant aesthetic departure from previous macOS versions. Tembo 3.0 adopts this refreshed Mac user interface with a fine-tuned new look, a new icon, and a redesigned toolbar. 

Moreover, Tembo 3 adds support for Macs with Apple Silicon processors. It gives you the best performance on the latest Mac hardware.

Apple Mail Plug-in

Tembo 3.0 can again search Apple Mail messages.

Starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple Mail messages are no longer available through the Spotlight index used by Tembo .

Tembo 3.0 can nonetheless find your Apple Mail messages. Tembo installs a plug-in that runs within the Mail application. This plug-in allows Tembo to include Mail message files in your search results.

Enhanced Grid View

In Grid view, you can turn on additional file information which will display information like an image’s size, f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, and other metadata directly below the file name.

File Tags

Your favorite file tags are now available from the context menu. Customizable keyboard shortcuts allow for quick tagging.

Further Enhancements

  • Search By Date: Tembo 3.0 adds new options to search for files by time frame
  • Options: New options menu to quickly adjust your search parameters. Set default options in Tembo preferences
  • Apple Silicon: Tembo 3.0 works with the latest versions of macOS and fully supports Apple Silicon Macs

 

macOS Monterey Compatibility

This year’s macOS upgrade focusses on improvements to Apple’s own applications. macOS Monterey does not bring major design or technical changes likely to cause problems for existing applications.

It should nonetheless be wise to hold off upgrading for at least a couple of weeks and give Apple a chance to fix remaining bugs.

HoudahSpot

HoudahSpot icon
HoudahSpot: Powerful File Search for Mac

HoudahSpot 6 was updated last year to adopt the new design introduced in macOS 11 Big Sur.

HoudahSpot 6.1.7 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.

HoudahGeo

HoudahGeo icon
Photo Geocoding and Geotagging for Mac

HoudahGeo 6.1.1 has been tested to work with macOS 12.

An upcoming update will address a few minor bugs discovered during testing.

 

Tembo

Tembo icon
Tembo: Easy and Efficient File Search for Mac

Tembo 2.6 has been verified to work with macOS 12.

Tembo relies on the Spotlight index to find files. On macOS Catalina or later, Apple Mail messages are no longer accessible through the Spotlight index.

 

CustomShortcuts

CustomShortcuts icon
Easy user-defined keyboard shortcuts

CustomShortcuts 1.1 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.

CustomShortcuts is a free download from our web site.

Type2Phone

Type2Phone
Use your Mac as a keyboard for your iPhone

Type2Phone 3.1.2 has been tested to work with macOS 12 to connect to devices running iOS 15.

 

macOS Big Sur Compatibility

macOS Big Sur introduces the biggest design update to macOS since the introduction of Mac OS X. Still HoudahSpot, HoudahGeo, Tembo and Type2Phone look quite at home on the new version of macOS.

As always, we recommend you hold off upgrading for at least a couple of weeks and give Apple a chance to fix the most glaring bugs.

HoudahSpot will soon get a major upgrade. HoudahSpot 6.0 will fully adopt the new appearance of macOS Big Sur. First and foremost, the upgrade will bring a host of new features and enhancements. You can check out the latest beta by signing up for the HoudahSpot beta newsletter.

HoudahSpot

HoudahSpot icon
HoudahSpot: Powerful File Search for Mac

HoudahSpot 5.1.6 has been updated to work with macOS 11.

With the release of macOS 10.15 last year, Apple no longer allows third-party applications access to the search index for Apple Mail messages. The situation has not improved with the release of macOS 11.

The upcoming HoudahSpot 6.0 upgrade will include a plug-in for the Apple Mail application. This will again allow HoudahSpot to search Mail messages.

 

HoudahGeo

HoudahGeo icon
Photo Geocoding and Geotagging for Mac

HoudahGeo 6.0.8 has been updated to work with macOS 11.

HoudahGeo has also been verified to work with the latest version of Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom Classic CC.

 

Tembo

Tembo icon
Tembo: Easy and Efficient File Search for Mac

Tembo 2.6 has been updated to work with macOS 11.

Like HoudahSpot, Tembo relies on the Spotlight index to find files. When run on macOS Catalina or Big Sur, Tembo will not be able to search Apple Mail messages.

 

Type2Phone

Type2Phone: Use your Mac as a Bluetooth Keyboard

Type2Phone 3.1.2 has been tested to work with macOS 11 to connect to iOS 14.

Tembo 2.5 Video Tutorial

ScreenCastsOnline have published a short video tutorial that showcases Tembo – the friendly file search tool.

In this 10-minute video, Don McAllister gives you a tour of Tembo and highlights what makes Tembo unique. Sometimes good things come in small packages. This adage applies equally to this screencast and to Tembo.

 

Continue reading Tembo 2.5 Video Tutorial

Mail Search on MacOS Catalina

Note: This blog post strays away from our usual focus on tips & tricks. It does not provide a solution or workaround for Mail searches on macOS Catalina. It rather discusses technical background and ethical considerations.

Spotlight vs. Core Spotlight

Recent versions of macOS use two indexing technologies to power local searches in the Spotlight window: Spotlight and Core Spotlight.

Spotlight was introduced with OS X 10.4 Tiger. It indexes user files. Whenever a file is modified, the Spotlight engine calls upon the appropriate importer plug-in to read metadata and text content from the file. That data is then indexed for searching.

The fact that Spotlight works only with files can be a problem for some applications. For “shoebox” applications, it is often more natural to store data items in a single file or database rather than use one file per data item. Such data items cannot be indexed by Spotlight. Thus such applications either have to change their data storage to fit Spotlight’s requirements or resort to tricks to get their data into Spotlight.

Core Spotlight is a more recent addition. Core Spotlight does not watch for data or files to appear. Instead, applications actively submit data to Core Spotlight for indexing. This reversal of roles allows Core Spotlight to index any kind of data.  Continue reading Mail Search on MacOS Catalina

Change Default Application for File Type

Within HoudahSpot and Tembo, you can open files directly from the search results list. Just double click or select “Open” from the context menu, and the file selected will open in the default application for its file type.

In OS X, you can change the default application for a certain file type by following these steps: Continue reading Change Default Application for File Type

Start a Tembo file search from Alfred, Butler, or LaunchBar

Tembo implements a custom URL scheme. Use this to start searches from third party tools like Alfred, Butler, or LaunchBar.

Tembo 2.0 search URLs have the following format:

tembo2://search?query=[QUERY]&location=[LOCATION]&group=[GROUP]

Such URLs can be invoked by any application, browser, launcher, script, etc. In this article we will look at setting up a custom search in Alfred.

Continue reading Start a Tembo file search from Alfred, Butler, or LaunchBar

Custom keyboard shortcuts on Mac OS X

UPDATE: There finally is a better solution. Introducing CustomShortcuts.

On Mac OS X it is easy to set custom keyboard shortcuts for just about any menu item. Still this great feature is often overlooked.

  • Don’t like one of the default keyboard shortcuts in HoudahSpot?
  • Find yourself using the same HoudahGeo menu item over and over again?
  • Do you want to switch the Mail.app From: account without having to reach for the mouse?

Learn how to set up custom keyboard shortcuts for menu items in any Mac OS X application.

Continue reading Custom keyboard shortcuts on Mac OS X

Select several filter values

Tembo helps you sort through search results by providing context-sensitive filters. The drill-down views for different groups show different filters. Most filters provide a list of values found in the current search results. Select a value to see only results matching that value.

E.g. the filter sidebar for the Documents group list file types. The PDF Documents group can be filtered by author. Images can be filtered by resolution and file type. Etc.

Continue reading Select several filter values