Mac – search files on command line using mdfind

By on

Mac spotlight and finder are great way to find files on Mac. But Mac also has command line utility mdfind (utility to query meta data) which can be used to find files on Mac. It uses the same meta data which is used by spotlight search but can also find system files. Here are some use cases.
mac-mdfind-example

Create sample test files for mdfind tutorial

  1. Create file1234.txt in /opt/tmp/dir1 with following content 
    file1234
  2. Create file4567.txt in /opt/tmp/dir2 with following content 
    file1234

mdfind – find files (file name or content) anywhere on Mac

$ mdfind file1234
/opt/tmp/tmp3/dir2/file5678.txt
/opt/tmp/tmp3/dir1/file1234.txt

mdfind – find files (file name or content) in a dir

$ mdfind -onlyin dir1 file1234
/opt/tmp/tmp3/dir1/file1234.txt

mdfind – find files (file name only) anywhere on Mac

$ mdfind -name file1234
/opt/tmp/tmp3/dir1/file1234.txt

Suggested posts:

  1. How to search files by name in Mac Finder
  2. Svn log of all files in a directory
  3. Mac command line utility open – some handy tips for better productivity
  4. Csslint – quick command-line tutorial and how to use it for pre-deployment sanity check
  5. Rsync – using dryrun to list changed files
  6. Linux – find files containing specific text
  7. Mac Finder – how to search system hidden files
  8. Linux du – find disk usage of directories or files
Share this article: share on facebook share on linkedin tweet this submit to reddit
Posted in | Tagged , ,