Finding Files on a Mac

Finding files on a Mac

Now, I know this will never happen to you! ;-) But you may know someone who may lose track of a folder or a file... Here's how to find files or folders on your Mac.

Activity: Finding Files and Folders

1) Make sure you're in the Finder. (Click here if you don't know how to switch between programs. Clicking on this link will cause another browser window to open. Read through / practice that and then close that window and you'll be back here.)

2) Call down the File menu and click on the Find... menu item.

In this case my screenshot is of version 2 of Sherlock, Apple's search utility. Depending on the version of the Mac System you have you might have version 1 of Sherlock, which looks like this:

3) Type some text into the search criteria box. Type ".jpg" without the quotes. Then click the magnifying glass (or Find) and let the find yield results. Sherlock 2 results look like this:

Note that when I click on one of the found items Sherlock shows the path (through the folders) to where that file lives. You can at least now go through the folders to see where file is.

There are all sorts of things you can do with this program. Pull down the file menu and look at some of the possibilities. Turn on Balloon Help and go exploring! Check out the help. (Click here to learn more about getting help. Clicking on this link will cause another browser window to open. Read through / practice that and then close that window and you'll be back here.)

Note that Sherlock also does a whole lot of other stuff: Search the Internet, search the content of files, and more. Check the help for instruction on these matters. This program is a major feature of the Mac OS.

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