Here at Macworld , we ’re both Spotlight ’s freehanded fans and its self-aggrandising critic : It ’s a feature with lots of potency , but much of that voltage is presently unfulfilled ( or , at the very least , hampered in its performance ) .
I ’m certain that as Apple exhaust updates to Mac OS X , Spotlight will meliorate , but in the lag , I find myself getting frustrated when I taste to execute even the unproblematic of searches . For example , I recently wanted to witness a file with the word “ Eddy ” ( as in Macworld ’s yearly Eddy Awards ) in the title . I typewrite the word
Granted , I could have used one of Spotlight ’s various tricks — for representative , enclosing
Whatisquick and light ? The freeEasyFind 3.8.1 ( ) from DevonTechnologies . When you launch EasyFind , you get a dim-witted search field of force with a number of well-off - to - see pick :
In my example — searching my Documents folder for a filing cabinet with
Just like the Spotlight and Finder hunting results window , you’re able to twice - click any filing cabinet in EasyFind ’s search results to open it , or use pull - and - drop to work with it . But unlike Spotlight , important information about each file — modification day of the month , size , tolerant , and locating — is seeable without get to dawn an Info button . ( admit the mouse pointer over the Where value to view the full course to the file without having to enlarge the window . ) And if you desire more information about a particular particular in the resultant window , the Finder ’s banner Get Info crosscut ( Command - I ) display the Finder ’s Get Info window for that token . you’re able to even cancel item right away — bypass the Trash — by take them and choosing Destroy from the File menu .
For lookup like this , EasyFind fulfills Spotlight ’s hope of “ instant searches . ” That said , EasyFind ’s speed vary dramatically depend on the type of search . Unlike Spotlight , EasyFind does n’t constantly index your laborious drive ’s contents , so its searches are exactly that : searches . For a limited hunt such as the one I perform , EasyFind is much , much quicker — in my example , 4 second compared to nearly a minute and a half for Spotlight ’s standard search . However , when I perform the same EasyFind lookup on my integral heavy drive , it pack virtually 50 seconds . Still much faster than Spotlight , but keep in mind that EasyFind was searching only file name , not file contents . When I searched thecontentsof file just in my Documents pamphlet , EasyFind take approximately the same amount of clip as the Spotlight search , which was searching the capacity of most of my hard drive . This limit means that I leave the file content searches to Spotlight and its content index .
If you ’re a power user , EasyFind also volunteer a number of advanced feature — note above — that are either unavailable in Spotlight or not easily accessible . By using the Wildcards search option , you’re able to use grep - like formulation matching . For exemplar , if I want to find files with either
There ’s also a out of sight group of setting that let you customize the type of files EasyFind searches when it probe file contents . Via the preferences drawer , you could designate up to five lists of data file extensions and filing cabinet type . ( EasyFind includes utilitarian sample list . ) By check and unchecking these leaning , you determine which types of filing cabinet are searched . For example , if you know the file you ’re look for is a text file of some kind , you may limit EasyFind ’s contentedness search to only text file types ; doing so will make the cognitive content search dramatically . ( If you want to searchallfiles , plainly check the “ Scan all file ” box . )
Finally , if you ’re a fan of Mac OS X ’s services characteristic , EasyFind bring home the bacon its own service .
If you ’re tired of Spotlight ’s slow performance — especially for the most introductory types of searches — give EasyFind a try . It ’s free , uses very trivial memory when running , and is blazingly fast for many types of searches . I keep it work on my Mac all the time for quick memory access .
EasyFind is compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 .
