4/6/23
9:00 am

11 Smart Folders To Make You More Productive On Your Mac

Learn how to use Smart Folders on your Mac and see some examples that you can put into use today.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some uses for smart folders on your Mac. 
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Smart Folders are a way to setup something that looks like a folder but it's actually conducting a search every time you view it. In fact these are also called Saved Searches. To create a Smart Folder in the Finder go to File, then New Smart Folder. Then it looks like you're doing a search. But the difference will be that when you're done you can hit the Save button and that turns that into a Saved Search or Smart Folder that you can go to again and again and it updates automatically. 
So like with a search you're going to start off by deciding whether you're going to look On This Mac or in whatever folder it was that you were at when you started creating the Saved Search. In this case I was in my documents folder which is just where I want to be. I only want to find results in the Documents folder. If you want the results to be somewhere else then make sure you start in that folder. Now I'm going to click the Plus button here and that allows me to define the search. 
My first example is simply going to be showing me the most recent files that I have opened. So I'm going to change the criteria from Name to Last Opened Date. Then you could select within Last. You can also choose a bunch of other things like, This Year or Today or Before or After. Let's do Within Last and then 30 days. You'll see the results here. This shows you the files that have been opened in the last 30 days. You could also choose to Sort it how you want. So you can have it Sorted By Name or you can have it sorted by Date Last Opened. So the most recently opened files at the top. Then to create the Smart Folder, click Save. 
Now you get to Name it. So we'll call this Recent 30 Days and now we can save it anywhere we like. But the default location is in your Library Folder in a folder called Saved Searches. The only reason you would use that is if you also want to check Add to Sidebar. This keeps the Smart Folder tucked away somewhere but adds it to the Sidebar for easy access. So if I click Save Here you can see it. I get a Smart Folder under Favorites. Then let's say I'm somewhere else and I want to go and see my most recently opened files I can click here and it jumps right to it. If you ever want to customize it you can Control Click here and you can choose Show Search Criteria. This allows you to alter the saved search. So if I want it to be more recent files, like files from the last 10 days I could change it to that and click Save. Now I've just adjusted it. Then you'll probably also going to want to rename it then to Recent 10 days.
Now let's go back to the Documents Folder here and create a New Smart Folder. But let's do something a little different this time. Instead of the most recently opened files let's look at Creation Date. So we can say the Creation Date is within the last 30 Days. So this will just show you files that you've created in the last 30 Days and ignore ones that were created before that even if you open them. So this could come in handy in a variety of situations. Note that you could also change it to the Last Modified Date is within the last 30 days. So this will show you files that weren't just opened but actually had changes made to them in the last 30 days. 
Now another thing you could do is set the criteria to Kind. You can set the Kind to something like Document and it will show you all the documents files. Or you can have it be just image files. Even choose the image type here. But if you choose Other you can type the name of an app. So if I want to see all my Pages documents I could just type Pages and it will show me those. If I want to see Microsoft Word documents I can type Word. So you can Save this and have a quick way to see all of your documents of that type. You can, of course, combine this by clicking the Plus button here and adding a Last Opened Date within the last 30 Days. Now you see all of the documents opened, say, in Pages within the last 30 days. 
You could also have it search for multiple types of files. Like, for instance, what if I wanted to see all of the Word and Pages files together because maybe I use both apps interchangeably. Well, let's get rid of this criteria here and I'm going to add Plus here instead of actually filling something out for this first section I'm going to hold the Option Key down and the Plus changes to 3 Dots. I'm going to click that and then you get this Any of the Following Are True or All the following Are True or None of the Following are True. Leave it at Any and change this to Kind is Other and we'll say Pages. Then we'll click the Plus button here and as a second criteria under Any and we'll set that to Kind is Other is Word. I can remove this top name matches one here and now you can see my results are Any File where the Kind is either Pages or Word. 
Now another thing you could do is have it find your largest files. So I click the Plus button here. Notice that there isn't an option for size. That's okay because you can use Other and there's a huge list of items here. So many of these have to do with metadata for images, videos, and sound. But some of them have to do with just regular file things like size. I can search for that and I find File Size here. If I even want that to appear in the Menu I can check it here so it will always be there and I won't have to search for it. I can click Okay. I can say File Size, and say, is greater than and give it a certain amount. So I can say, for instance 10 MB. It will just show me the files larger than that. I can sort it by size with the largest one at the top and Save this as a Smart Folder to show me my largest file.
You can also search by Contents. So I can change Name to Content here, and contains and search for something like a word like this. It will find it in any file that Spotlight indexes the contents. So Pages, Word, PDF's, text files, all sorts of things. Another option is to find all the files that you've Shared. If you Share files throughout iCloud Drive you may loose track of which files have been shared. You don't want to look in every single folder and subfolder to find them. So you can simply change the criteria here. Go to Other. Look for Shared. You can see Is Shared. Then we can look for Is Shared yes. You can also use Tags. So you won't find this here by default. But if I choose Other and I search for Tags, you can Add it and then you could have Tags matches and type the name of the Tag, like Work or Red. Then like before you can hold the Option Key down and click what was the Plus button here and choose Multiple Tags. In this case I want to get rid of this one. So I"ll change this to Tags and then matches. Tag Name. Click Plus. Also select Tags and then matches and another Tag Name. You could see I get everything that matches either one of those Tags. 
Another interesting one that can come in handy is if you search for Where and you select Where From. Select Okay. Let me set it to Contains and then I'm going to type http. What I'm see here are files. But if I select a file and then Get Info on it, Command I, look under More Info, there's Where From. It gives a URL if it is a file that you've downloaded online. Of course the URL's almost always going to start with http. So, this is a quick way to find files that you have downloaded from websites. If you like you can actually look at the Where From there and take something from it. So, say this was your company name here, you could this in there and anything you've downloaded from the company servers then should show up in the Smart Folder. 
Now using Kind makes sense if you want to find files that are of a certain document kind, like Pages. What if you wanted to find  files that have been exported from Pages, like PDF files. PDF files that you've made from Pages. Well you could do that by choosing Other and then look for Creator and there's one called Content Creator. Choose that and set Content Creator to say Pages. What you'll get here is a whole bunch of PDF's in this case. Those PDF's are all files that were created from Pages. I could also choose something like, say, Pixelmator and here are image files that have exported from Pixelmator. 
Finally, you could use this as an App launcher. So I could set the criteria to be that the Kind is Application. It is going to show me all the applications in the Documents Folder which aren't really any. What would probably be better is if I actually went to the Application's folder and then I started the search here. So I do File, New Smart Folder, Applications, click Plus to add criteria there. Do Kind Is Applications, so I get all my applications. But now click Plus again and then do Last Opened Date. Then say within the last, say, 10 days. So I'm going to get apps that I've opened most recently. I could sort by Date Lasts Opened. So this will be my most frequently used apps at the top. Or I could just sort alphabetically and just have all the apps that I've used very recently. If I were to then save this and call it My Apps and add it to the sidebar I can now at anytime go to my apps here, see all my recent apps and launch anyone that I want by just double clicking on it. 
So I hope you like these ideas for using Smart Folders. I hope it encourages you to explore Smart Folders more to create some variations that you can use. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 23 Responses to “11 Smart Folders To Make You More Productive On Your Mac”

Zac

2 years ago

I didn't fully appreciate what Smart Folders could do until now. Thanks!

Will

2 years ago

Will you forgive me for being fussy? Criteria is surely plural. Criterion is singular.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Will: That is changing. You know the difference, but many more people would find using criterion very odd-sounding. Since I'm talking, not writing, I'll go with criteria here, especially since well-known sources support it. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/criteria-vs-criterion-singular-plural-grammar

John Russell

2 years ago

Once again, a feature on the Mac I've found interesting over the years is shown to be a powerhouse! Thanks, Gary. I'm thinking I can put Houdahspot out to pasture??

Geoff Matson

2 years ago

You just helped me become better organized on my Mac. Thanks

DEBORAH JENKINS

2 years ago

Today I struggled finding a word document to email. NOW - I am ready to implement SMART FOLDERS - Thank you

Ken Nellis

2 years ago

I couldn't help but notice that in your Smart Folder example of files of size > 10 MB, that one file, Wombat.key, was only 7.4 MB. What's up with that? Great demo. Thanx!

nick

2 years ago

Very powerful and under-rated features - thx Gary

thom

2 years ago

I've always found this to be something I want to try and use but if I hit command F I get to the same thing very fast. Have you ever needed to search for the same thing so many times that you made a Smart Folder? Maybe it's the way I organize my files in finder but I feel like I could just make an alias to a file and put it in the sidebar. Honestly wondering how I can implement this because I think it's a great idea.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

thom: If none of these ideas appeal to you and you can't think of any other uses for Smart Folders, then you probably just don't need them in your workflows. Not everyone needs Smart Folders or any other single particular feature of an OS.

frank

2 years ago

why does Wombat.key appear when its size is less than 10 MB

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

frank: Probably hadn't fully updated the list after I switched from KB to MB before I switched to showing something else.

Edwin

2 years ago

Gary, is there a way to edit a saved search and save as a new copy? or duplicate one and edit the new copy?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Edwin: Yes. Just duplicate the .savedSearch file and edit the copy.

jun

2 years ago

Thanks Gary for the video! Just want to know that we can also search all those things and save the search in any normal Finder window. So, what's the thing about this creating via File > New Smart Folder menu item ? Or, did I miss anything? Thanks again!

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

jun; Just two different ways to do it.

Dezer

2 years ago

What if I want a Smart folder for more than 1 Folder. e.g. Recent files in both Download & Documents Folder? How do you set the criteria for this please?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Dezer: It is tough to do, but possible. See https://macmost.com/searching-for-files-in-two-or-more-folders-at-the-same-time-on-your-mac.html

Dezer

2 years ago

Thanks Gary, really appreciate that. Overly complicated but helpful. It's a shame Apple doesn't just let us add another folder???

Mark R

2 years ago

Very helpful video, thanks Gary. When I set the search criteria to documents that were opened in the last 10 days, it doesn't pick up an Excel spreadsheet that I opened, edited and saved yesterday, yet it picks up PDF documents, Word documents and even movie files. Do you know why this could be?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Mark: Perhaps something to do with where the document is located? Since it is Excel, maybe it is in Microsoft's cloud? Just a guess.

ntb

11 months ago

Is it somehow possible to use smart folders to locate duplicate copies of applications that might be in various locations in my Users account on my Mac?

Gary Rosenzweig

11 months ago

ntb: That wouldn't be the right tool for finding duplicate application installations. If you suspect you have installed an application in your account then it is probably in your account's Applications folder. Just look there.

Comments Closed.

11 Smart Folders To Make You More Productive On Your Mac

Comments: 23 Responses to “11 Smart Folders To Make You More Productive On Your Mac”

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