How to search for file names only with wildcards in Spotlight?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to use wildcard characters in Spotlight search?

I have two questions about Spotlight:

Can Spotlight be set to not search keywords in files' contents? I just want to search the file names.
Can I search for wildcards, such as "*.exe" or "*d.exe" to find all the files which are ended with exe?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 16 '12 at 05:37

1

The normal Spotlight UI doesn't support wildcards, but you can (almost) search by extension.

Open a Spotlight window with ⌥⌘␣ and select Filename contains (or press ⌃⌘F in Finder):

Or in the Spotlight menu:

mdfind does support wildcards:

mdfind "kMDItemFSName=='*.exe'c" # ignore case

answered May 16 '12 at 05:37

Lri

41,444

For those looking for a command line, pseudo locate, add something like this to your bash initialization: function mdname () { mdfind "kMDItemDisplayName==$@" } – jwd630 Jan 14 '15 at 22:24

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:04

1

You can do wildcard searches using "Raw Queries" in the Finder advanced find view (aka Spotlight window). For example:
Raw Query example

More info at https://superuser.com/a/491119/66255

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:04

Community

1

answered Oct 22 '12 at 13:51

studgeek

2,415

Mick MacCallum · Answer 3 · 2012-05-16T02:48:53.777

0

As far as I know this cannot be done, the only preferences for Spotlight are to change what folders to ignore, and what kind of files to search for (more broadly, images, music etc...)

EDIT: This can be achieved using Automator as demonstrated in the screenshot below.

enter image description here

edited May 16 '12 at 02:48

answered May 16 '12 at 02:30

Mick MacCallum

57

is there any tool can achieve my purpose? – showtimefan May 16 '12 at 02:42
@showtimefan See edit above. – Mick MacCallum May 16 '12 at 02:49

How to search for file names only with wildcards in Spotlight?

3 Answers3