20 Things You Can Do With Spotlight Besides Searching For Files

Besides file searches, you can use Spotlight to search for word definitions, sports scores, weather, stock prices, System Preferences, perform complex math calculations, unit conversions and much more.

Comments: 14 Responses to “20 Things You Can Do With Spotlight Besides Searching For Files”

    Don J J Carroll
    1 year ago

    Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 5:00 p.m. - Spotlight video
    If I have a Safari Window Open and in that window are 26 tabs. I know that one of those tabs is about motorsports, a YouTube video.

    Now I have 25 Safari Windows, each with say 15 + tabs
    Q-can spotlight search all my Safari Windows (and included tabs) for a tab that contains motorsports?

    1 year ago

    Don: My head hurts just thinking about 26 tabs. It explodes when I think of 25 windows with 15 tabs each! Do you really have that? No, Spotlight won't list all of your tabs. It only shows bookmarks and history from Safari.

    Don J J Carroll
    1 year ago

    Thursday, March 24, 2022, 12:26 p.m. - Thanks for the reply Gary, bummer I wished Spotlight could have searched Safari tabs. I just counted (are you sitting down) 70 Safari windows open and as I stated multiple tabs open in each window.
    Reason: There are so many awesome web sites (blogs, YouTube video, news...) stories that I found extremely interesting and I do not have time at the instant of finding them to read or look at them, so I save them. That creates find a specific item a problem.

    1 year ago

    Don: Please look into using the Reading List feature in Safari instead. It is a much better way to handle that.

    Arnie Keller
    1 year ago

    Great tutorial. One question: Spotlight on my Mac is very slow (I’m running the latest OS on an M1 mini ). Is there any way to speed it up? Thanks.

    1 year ago

    Arnie: How long has it been since your last update (to 12.3, I'm assuming). Also, do you let your Mac sleep while not using it, or do you shut it down?

    Arnie Keller
    1 year ago

    I Updated the day 12.3 came out. I shut down my Mac every night but it does go to sleep at times during the day. Come to think of it, so do I. Thanks for any advice.

    Margaret Parkes
    1 year ago

    Another interesting tutorial but is there some way I can increase the size of the font or increase the size of the panel?
    Thanks.

    1 year ago

    Arnie: You should let it sleep at night. It does maintenance then, like indexing for spotlight. See https://macmost.com/a-beginners-guide-to-whether-to-shut-down-or-sleep-your-mac.html

    1 year ago

    Margaret: There is no way to change the text size in Spotlight. But if you are having trouble reading it there, then you are probably having trouble elsewhere too. I'd change the resolution of your screen. See https://macmost.com/15-ways-to-make-text-easier-to-read-on-your-mac.html

    nick
    1 year ago

    Gary, I just tried the NHL scores, but using the tab key didn't take me to the expanded results like you show in your video. Maybe I missed a step? thx

    1 year ago

    nick: Are the scores the selected result when you press tab?

    nick
    1 year ago

    Never mind Gary, I went into Spotlight Preferences and turned on Siri Suggestions, now the tab works :)

    William Prusak
    1 year ago

    Gary, you are a permanent fixture on my iMac. This tutorial was amazing! I Read (Watch) all your Vlogs,
    You are genuinely the Source for anything, Mac.

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