Searching in Particular Folders

Initially, the Find command is set to search “Everywhere,” which includes your home folder and the storage volumes connected to your computer, such as its internal hard drive, CD-ROM, and external disks connected to the computer’s ports. You may be searching entire disks when all you need to search is a folder or two.

Adding a folder to the Find command

If you want to search only in particular folders (including these folders’ enclosed folders and files) you can add these folders to the list of searchable sources in the Find command. Then you can turn on only the particular folders in the list that you want to search. If you turn on only one folder, Find searches only that folder. If you turn on multiple folders in the list of searchable sources, Find searches all of the folders.

Note

When Find searches a folder, it must visit each item that the folder contains. When searching an entire volume, Find can quickly search a catalog of the volume’s contents instead. Although an individual folder takes longer to search, you may not notice, unless the folder contains many items. The catalog is not something you can normally see; Mac OS X maintains it and makes it invisible to people using the computer.

To add a folder to the list of searchable sources, follow these steps:

1. Open the Find window.

2. Choose Specific places from the pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 7-5.

   
   Figure 7-5: Choose “Specific places” from the Search In pop-up menu of the Find window.

3. Click the Add button to the right of the Search In pop-up menu to show the Choose a Folder window shown in Figure 7-6. As a shortcut, you can double-click the folder that you want to add.

   
   Figure 7-6: Select the folder you want to add to Find’s list of searchable sources and then click Choose.

Mac OS X remembers these added places. The added places appear when you open Specific Places in the future.

In the Finder window, Search, a version of this Specific Places, option is available. It appears as Selection in the pop-up menu that opens when you click the magnifying glass icon in the Search field. With Selection chosen, Find searches the item or items you select. You can click once on a folder to select it or drag a rectangle around several folders. If you choose to do neither, Find will search the item selected in the Finder window sidebar.

Removing a folder from the Find command preferences

Not only can you add folders to the Find window’s list of sources, but you can also remove folders from the list. To remove a folder from the list of searchable sources:

1. Select one or more folders in the Find window’s list of sources. To select a folder, click its icon or name. Find highlights the folder’s name and icon to indicate that it is selected. (The checkbox in the On column does not indicate whether a folder is selected for this purpose.)

   To select an additional folder, Command-click its icon or name. To select a range of folders, click the first one and then Shift-click the last one. You can also select a range of folders by dragging across their icons or names.

   Selecting a folder or folders enables the Remove button.

2. Click the Remove button. The selected folders are removed immediately. If you accidentally remove a folder, you can add it to the list again as described earlier.