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.
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.
Continue reading Quickly Switch Between File Size or Time Units
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.
When you open HoudahSpot – and have not yet changed the default setup – you will see three preconfigured search criteria in the Refine section:
Continue reading What Search Criteria are Available in 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.
Continue reading Search DEVONthink Databases using 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.
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.
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.
The default search form in HoudahSpot lets you to search for files by name, text content and content kind.
When you know the type of the file you are looking for, you may want to search by file extension.
Do you frequently search by file extension? Wouldn’t it be convenient if the “File Extension” search was available by default?
Continue reading Find MacOS Files by Extension
HoudahSpot searches always go into subfolders. For example, when you search in your home folder, you can find letters saved to your Documents folder.
When you don’t want files from a subfolder to clutter search results, excluding the subfolder is easy: just drag the folder from the breadcrumb path at the bottom of the HoudahSpot window to the Locations/Exclude list.
You can repeat the procedure to exclude more folders. But if you want to see only results from the top level folder, it is easier to use the path filter to simply hide results from nested folders.
Continue reading Search for Top Level Files. Exclude Subfolders
In macOS, it’s possible to hide folders. The user Library folder, for example, is hidden by default. Hidden folders are invisible to the Finder and don’t show up in open/save dialog boxes.
What can you do if you need to access a hidden folder, e.g. when searching for a specific file within? Continue reading How to Access Hidden Folders
In Mac OS X’s Finder, you can save searches as “Smart Folders”. These give you quick access to all your files that meet certain criteria. For example, all Microsoft Word files modified this month. All JPG photos taken with a specific camera. Or all e-mails you’ve received from certain senders within the last seven days.
Because Mac OS X Smart Folders are actually saved searches, they differ from regular folders: they don’t actually hold anything – they only list files stored elsewhere. The content of Smart Folder is not static but dynamic. It is updated continuously as new files come to meet the smart folder’s search criteria. This means that its content changes every time files on your Mac are added, changed, or removed.
With HoudahSpot (4.1 or later), you can easily set up a search and export it as a Finder Smart Folder.
Continue reading Save HoudahSpot Searches as Finder Smart Folders
