Use Spotlight To Its Full Potential [Video How-To]

Michael Steeber (7:37 am PDT, Jun 19 2011)

Use Spotlight To Its Full Potential [Video How-To]

Spotlight, the search tool built into Mac OS X is extremely powerful if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize the true power of it, and therefore lose out on a lot of functionality. In this video I’ll show you how to use Spotlight to its full potential.

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26 comments »

  • Stuartsmacs

    Its full potential. No apostrophe. OK?

  • Tallest_Skil

    For HEAVEN’S sake.

    It’s ‘its’. Not it’s.

    This is the state of studentdom these days? Honestly…

    • http://trdd.us/mscomputer Michael Steeber

      Everyone makes mistakes. Fixed. 

      • Tallest_Skil

        I realize that. But this is journalism. And the changes haven’t yet been pushed, apparently.

  • christoph

    I like Alfred better. It’s bigger and right in the middle of the screen, so you actually see your results^^and it’s faster

  • http://pixelmatortutorials.net PMtuts

    CMD+Spacebar will not work if you have international options enabled. You’ll end up changing the language of your keyboard in stead of opening spotlight.

    • Euro_MacHead

      Ehhhh…wrong.

      My iMac and MacBook Pro are as international (several (5) keyboard languages enabled) as it gets but cmd+space does always work. You seem to have simply reconfigured the shortcut. 

      • http://pixelmatortutorials.net PMtuts

        No I haven’t reconfigured anything regarding shortcuts. But it doesn’t matter I have seen a lot of shortcut differences between OS X in different languages. I have a Norwegian setup on one account and a English setup on the other account. And using the English account cmd+space shows finder. On the Norwegian account it changes the keyboard language. Using safari on the english account and using the cmd-key while clicking on a link opens a new tab in the background as on the Norwegian account the new tab gets opened in the foreground. Also here no configuration changes done.

    • tincho

      I have spanish keyboard and a few others and cmd+space works for me.

    • asil

      I have the same problem. Apparently, when you have international keyboards enabled (I have several different Chinese keyboards enabled) the shortcut for spotlight changes to ^spacebar. I haven’t changed configurations either.

  • http://twitter.com/MorganBuzzL Morgan

    I just use Alfred — does most of these functions and more :)

  • Robert

    Great video michael! I never bothered looking into spotlight in detail but your video has made me realize how powerful it is.

    Robert

  • Bretzel46

    What are the icons on your menu bar?

  • Return of the mac

    Looks like your gonna have to replace your mouse batteries soon

  • Anonymous

    Great video. I’ve always used Spotlight loads and knowing these other features will come in handy.
    Thanks.

  • Erik

    Nice video. Thanks. I have a question about math in spotlight. If you do cos or sin, say cos(60) it gives out 0,952. This is in Radials. Is it possible to make it so that the output is in Degrees? When I do it in the Calculator App you have the option to choose, but not in Spotlight. A handy terminal code maybe?

  • Jack Holland

    An apostrophe is extremely powerful if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize the true power of ‘it’…

  • Luckystar

    ITS — it’s means “it is”.

    • Guest

      ITS is the possessive of IT while IT’S is the contraction of IT IS. Simple, yes?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=535305366 Willy Pimentel

    awesome

  • Rob Pungello

    Personally, I think I’ll stick to Quicksilver.

  • Chuckmoehow

    All of you need to stop being so damn picky.  We all have plenty of things we make mistakes on and most people can’t stand people pointing them out.  You wouldn’t like it if someone pointed out all of your mistakes to everyone.  Then again anyone can point out errors as a tough person behind a computer.

  • Chuckmoehow

    All of you need to stop being so damn picky.  We all have plenty of things we make mistakes on and most people can’t stand people pointing them out.  You wouldn’t like it if someone pointed out all of your mistakes to everyone.  Then again anyone can point out errors as a tough person behind a computer.

  • Chuckmoehow

    All of you need to stop being so damn picky.  We all have plenty of things we make mistakes on and most people can’t stand people pointing them out.  You wouldn’t like it if someone pointed out all of your mistakes to everyone.  Then again anyone can point out errors as a tough person behind a computer.

  • http://www.facebook.com/neurosapiens Kannapiran Ponraj

    Amazing Mike, You blew me off, Thanks

  • http://www.facebook.com/neurosapiens Kannapiran Ponraj

    Amazing Mike, You blew me off, Thanks

About the author

Michael SteeberMichael Steeber is a student who is obsessed with everything Apple. He enjoys making videos and runs the MSComputerVideos YouTube channel in his free time. You can follow him on Twitter as well.

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Posted in How-To, Mac, OS X | Tagged: , , , |