Creating Smart Folders on a Mac
On
my Mac, I end up searching for the same types of files over and over. Is there
some way to set up a saved search so I don’t have to repeat the same steps
every time I want to find these specific types of files?
This is a common problem; it’s so
common, in fact, Apple included the ability to create saved searches as part of
the built-in behavior of Finder. Imagine that you create Microsoft Word
documents as part of your job, and you store them in multiple folders, based on
the client you’re working for. At some point, perhaps you want to find all the
Microsoft Word documents, no matter what folder each is stored in. Rather than
dig through each of the folders where you might have stored a Word document,
you can instead create a Smart Folder—that is, a saved search that displays all
the files that meet the criteria you specify (in this case, files created by
Microsoft Word).
To create a new Smart Folder, in
Finder, select File, then New Smart Folder from the menu. Specify a search
criterion (you could use “.docx”, without the quotes, to search for Microsoft
Word document files). Click the Save button, give the saved search a name and
the named search appears in the Finder sidebar. Selecting that Smart Folder
displays all the files that match the criterion you specified, so next time you
need to look at all the Word documents, you don’t need to take any extra steps.
The great part about a smart folder
is that Finder shows you all the matching files as if they were all in the same
folder, even though they’re not. It’s easy to manipulate groups of the
documents as if they were in the same folder, and it’s easy to find them all
later. Using a Smart Folder, you can organize your files however you like, yet
still find them as a group later.
Note that deleting the smart folder
will not delete the files: Remember, a Smart Folder is simply a saved search,
not an actual folder. You can, however, use a Smart Folder to delete multiple
files—select all the files you want to delete (or move, or print) and you can
act on those files, even though they’re stored in separate folders.
For more information about creating
saved searches and Smart Folders, check out this link: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-smart-folders-need-mac-set/.
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