Finder Search Operators on Mac: kind, date, and More

Typing a word into Finder's search box searches everything: file names, contents, metadata. That's why the results are usually a haystack. Search operators cut the haystack down — kind:pdf, date:today, name:invoice — and they can be combined with boolean logic. The syntax works in Finder and Spotlight alike on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia, and once it's in your fingers you'll stop browsing folders to find things.

Start a search, then narrow it

Press Cmd+F in any Finder window (or click the search field and start typing). Two things matter before the operators:

• Scope: a bar appears under the toolbar with This Mac and the current folder's name. Click the folder name to search only where you are.
• Tokens: as you type an operator, Finder suggests it and converts it into a small grey token — that's confirmation it understood you.

kind: — filter by file type

The operator you'll use most. Some useful values:

• kind:pdf, kind:image, kind:movie, kind:music
• kind:folder, kind:app, kind:document
• kind:presentation, kind:spreadsheet

So budget kind:spreadsheet finds spreadsheets containing “budget” — no more wading through emails and PDFs that mention the word.

date:, modified:, created: — filter by time

• date:today, date:yesterday — items opened, edited, or created recently.
• modified:today — only files whose contents changed today.
• created:2025 — files born in a given year; you can also use full dates like created:6/1/2026 in your locale's format.

“That file I worked on yesterday whose name I forget” is exactly modified:yesterday — sort the results by Date Modified and it's at the top.

name: — match the filename only

Plain search matches file contents too, which is often noise. name:report matches only files with “report” in the name. Add quotes for phrases: name:"q3 report".

Combine with AND, OR, and NOT

Operators chain — a space between terms means AND by default, and the uppercase boolean keywords let you get precise:

• kind:pdf invoice — PDFs mentioning invoice (implicit AND).
• kind:image name:logo OR name:icon — images named either way.
• kind:document NOT draft — documents that don't mention “draft”. A leading minus does the same: -draft.

Booleans must be uppercase or Finder treats them as ordinary words. Parentheses work for grouping in a pinch, though queries that complex are usually easier in the criteria-row UI (click the + button under the search field).

More operators worth knowing

• tag:red or tag:urgent — files carrying a Finder tag, by color or by name. Combined with kind:, tags become a real filing system.
• author:jane — documents whose metadata records an author; works for Office files, PDFs, and anything else that stores a creator.
• Exact phrases: wrap terms in quotes — "quarterly forecast" matches the phrase, not the two words scattered.

For attributes with no typed operator — file size, say — click the + button at the right of the scope bar to add a criteria row, choose File Size (pick Other… to see the full attribute list), and set “is greater than 1 GB”. Criteria rows and typed operators combine in the same search.

Save a good query as a Smart Folder

When a query earns its keep — kind:pdf date:this week, say — click Save under the search field. Finder stores it as a Smart Folder: a live saved search that's always up to date and can sit in your sidebar. That turns a one-off search into a permanent view of your files.

Fix the annoying default too

Finder always searches This Mac by default, even when you start inside a folder. One setting changes that — see make Finder search the current folder by default.