10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window

Want to tailor the Finder's Find (Command-F) window? Copy the following into TextEdit, make it plain text, and save it to the Desktop as default_smart.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>CompatibleVersion</key>
  <integer>1</integer>
  <key>RawQuery</key>
  <string>((_kMDItemGroupId > 6))</string>
  <key>SearchCriteria</key>
  <dict>
    <key>CurrentFolderPath</key>
    <string>/</string>
    <key>FXCriteriaSlices</key>
    <array>
      <dict>
        <key>criteria</key>
        <array>
          <string>com_apple_SearchSystemFilesAttribute</string>
          <integer>1220</integer>
        </array>
        <key>displayValues</key>
        <array>
          <string>SEARCH_SYSTEM_FILES</string>
          <string>YES</string>
        </array>
        <key>rowType</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>subrows</key>
        <array/>
      </dict>
    </array>
    <key>FXScope</key>
    <integer>0</integer>
    <key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
    <array>
      <string>kMDQueryScopeComputer</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
  <key>ViewOptions</key>
  <dict>
    <key>SidebarWidth</key>
    <integer>135</integer>
    <key>ToolbarVisible</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ViewHeight</key>
    <integer>582</integer>
    <key>ViewStyle</key>
    <string>icnv</string>
    <key>WindowBounds</key>
    <dict>
      <key>bottom</key>
      <integer>850</integer>
      <key>left</key>
      <integer>457</integer>
      <key>right</key>
      <integer>1207</integer>
      <key>top</key>
      <integer>268</integer>
    </dict>
  </dict>
  <key>Version</key>
  <string>10.5.3</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This version of Finder's search box shows the user's home folder as a place to search, includes all system files, is taller than the original window, and the cursor displays in the search box. Note that the ViewHeight field is the difference between bottom and top. So you can adjust it, and the window's width, to suit your needs.

To change the default Find window, run these commands in Terminal (don't type the $), pressing Return after each:

$ cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources 
$ sudo cp default_smart.plist default_smart.plist.bak

The first command changes to the proper directory, and the second one saves the original default search file, so you can restore the current behavior. Enter your admin password at the Password prompt when asked. To activate your modified search box, use this command:

$ sudo cp /Users/username/Desktop/default_smart.plist default_smart.plist

Replace username with your user's short username. To return to the original file, cd to that same directory in Terminal, then use this command:

$ sudo cp default_smart.plist.bak default_smart.plist

[robg adds: You'll need to kill the Finder for this change to take effect. We've covered this sort of edit before (1, 2), but this one adds the 10.5-specific ability to search system files.]

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10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: tempel on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 8:12AM PST

A suggestion.

Instead of this: sudo cp /Users/username/Desktop/default_smart.plist default_smart.plist
The article should suggest this: sudo cp ~/Desktop/default_smart.plist default_smart.plist

Those who are "dumb" users not to know what even a prompt is, this will be less of a problem to them. Those who know better can figure out how to set this for other users as well. No explanation necessary.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Command prompts for tempel
Authored by: parsons on Fri, Mar 14 2008 at 4:17AM PDT

"Those who are 'dumb' users not to know what even a prompt is, this will be less of a problem to them."
I was a Sr. Consulting Engineer with Apple for three years in Education Development, during which time I was afforded the opportunity to meet a number of these 'dumb' users to whom you refer. Many of these people were PhD's who were at the forefront of their fields (and were able to articulate their thoughts in grammatically correct English). I would love to meet you. I can only presume you rank in the stratosphere of the world's intellectual elite.

Command prompts for tempel
Authored by: tempel on Fri, Mar 13 2009 at 8:46AM PDT

First, I am not a native english speaker, meaning I am not so good in my choice of words.

Second, I put the word dumb in quotes on purpose. Doesn't that have any meaning in the english language?

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: hamarkus on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 9:01AM PST

For me it still starts search at 'My Mac' or / not in my user folder (and I have changed this key:
<key>CurrentFolderPath</key>
<string>/Users/hamarkus</string>
)

I really would like the behaviour to change such that it starts searching in the current folder not in /.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: McSvenster on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 11:10AM PST

Same with me: I'd love to have the default search in the actual folder...

And in my configuration the plist- file does not change anything.

SK

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: hamarkus on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 11:29AM PST

Adding the system file to the default search by this method works for me.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: baltwo on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 2:41PM PST

Me too! But I haven't figured out how to make that happen. I'd also like it to default to File Name and not contents, but I haven't figured out that one either.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: klktrk on Sat, Mar 8 2008 at 7:14AM PST


		<key>CurrentFolderPath</key>
		<array>
			<string>.</string>
		</array>

and


		<key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
		<array>
			<string>.</string>
		</array>

seem to be working for me. Haven't experimented enough to see whether I actually need both. I replaced wherever I saw the path with "."

---
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http://theapotek.com
The Executioner's Summary:
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[ Reply to This | # ]

Does not work for me
Authored by: hamarkus on Sat, Mar 8 2008 at 9:15AM PST

Replaced in both the default_smart.plist and the alternate_smart.plist and relaunched the Finder. Still starts at /.

No good
Authored by: wireface on Sat, Mar 8 2008 at 10:22AM PST

No, sadly this doesn't seem to do anything. You still must manually click the current folder.

boo

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: davidbk1 on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 11:18AM PST

This is great. Does anyone know how to make the default also search only filenames, not contents?

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: shenry318 on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 1:46PM PST

interesting... why is the version string in your plist file you suggest creating 10.5.3???

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: hamarkus on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 2:19PM PST

The Finder of OS X 10.5.2 has the version 10.5.3 (and the Finder of OS X 10.5.1 had the version 10.5.2). Don't ask me why and when this difference was introduced.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: baltwo on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 2:46PM PST

I did that to match the Finder version. Strictly a cosmetic fix.

Does anybody know how to switch
Authored by: tice on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 2:12PM PST

... the window search to "this folder" by default. It's always "This Mac" and I usually just need the current folder.

Does anybody know how to switch
Authored by: baltwo on Fri, Mar 7 2008 at 2:43PM PST

Me too! But I haven't figured out how to make the home folder or File Name the default setting.

Does anybody know how to switch
Authored by: shenry318 on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 10:54AM PDT

I can't figure it out either. But did you notice if you use smart searching in a open or save dialog it works like you would expect. There are three buttons "Computer", a "home" button and also a button with the name of the current folder and it even remember which you last selected. Too bad command-F from the finder doesn't work this way... Maybe if someone could figure out which .plist file is setting the search in an open or save dialog box that might reveal some info.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: llee on Sat, Mar 8 2008 at 8:51PM PST

Check this out:

http://lonestar.utsa.edu/llee/applescript/smart_folder_targeteer.html

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: baltwo on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 1:07PM PDT

I put this together, based on the one I did for Tiger, before I saw your implementation. Nice bit of scripting. Now, if we can figure out how to have the default show one or more folders as active, have File Name vice Contents active, have saved searches open with the search criteria enabled, and change the window's width, Spotlight might become what the engineers envisioned.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: johnsawyercjs on Wed, Mar 12 2008 at 12:50AM PDT

"Spotlight might become what the engineers envisioned."

But due to the way Apple's engineers keep changing how Spotlight, and the Find utility throughout all versions of OS X, works, it's hard to tell whether Apple's engineers have anything particularly in mind at all. Find under OS 10.3.9 was quite good, but I guess Apple decided it was too good for us.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: sjk on Sat, Mar 15 2008 at 1:43PM PDT

And what was Apple smoking when they replaced Date Modified with Last Opened in 10.5 Spotlight search results and eliminated customizable View Options? Has anyone figured out how to regain that lost functionality without using a third party Spotlight utility?

PS: Thanks for the Smart Folder Targeteer scripts, Laine. Going to give 'em a try later on my wife's eMac; I'm still satisfied running 10.4 on my iMac G5.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: hamarkus on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 4:20AM PDT

I have noticed that my new .plist file has an extended attribute (indicated by the @ at the end of the permissions listing as seen by ls -all). Calling:

$ xattr -l default_smart.plist

com.apple.FinderInfo:

0000   2A 2A 2A 2A 48 64 72 61 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ****Hdra........

0010   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................



com.apple.TextEncoding: MACINTOSH;0

And in fact this .plist file has a file icon of the application I edited it with. I don't think the file icon really screws up things but the text encoding just might.

Trying to remove the extended attribute with:

$ xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo default_smart.plist

No such xattr: com.apple.FinderInfo

That is strange.

sudo xattr -d works however
Authored by: hamarkus on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 4:29AM PDT

I am still a bit surprised where it picked up the file encoding 'MACINTOSH:0', but removing it did not fix anything.

sudo xattr -d works however
Authored by: baltwo on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 1:19PM PDT

I get:

$ xattr -l default_smart.plist
com.apple.TextEncoding: UTF-8;134217984

Additionally,

$ ls -el@ default_smart.plist
-rw-r--r--@ 1 me me 1456 Feb 29 19:46 default_smart.plist
com.apple.TextEncoding 15

I get nothing dealing with com.apple.FinderInfo or MACINTOSH;0

sudo xattr -d works however
Authored by: hamarkus on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 1:44PM PDT

Just blame SubEthaEdit, it added the file icon and generally does funny stuff with file encodings.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: FOOOD on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 5:19AM PDT

Does this also set the window width?

If not does anyone know how to set the window width? Every time I start a search normally the window is really narrow & I have to resize it, & also make the 'Name' column much wider. Would be great to be set a default window width with a wider 'Name' column.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: baltwo on Sun, Mar 9 2008 at 1:11PM PDT

AFAICT, that's not doable. A saved search with a wider window, just pops up with the default setting. Unless you can figure out how to trigger the items as described in NSView.h, you'll have to live with the current behavior. Incorporating that is beyond my ken.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: cxd101 on Mon, Mar 10 2008 at 12:05AM PDT

I'm not sure if my issue is the same, but if other .plist parameters can be modified in order to get what I'm looking for, I'll give it a shot. I have my folders organized by my major projects. Often when I am searching, I know exactly which folder has what I am looking for, and I just need to find the correct file in "that" particular folder. Under Tiger, using the search-field in the upper-right corner of an open finder window, if I entered the given search term in that search-field, the Finder would automatically default to starting the search (search-target) in "that" folder. Under Leopard, the default search-target is "This Mac". Question: what do I need to modify in this (or another) .plist file, such that all of my search-targets default to the folder that I am currently in, vs. "This Mac"?

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: FOOOD on Mon, Mar 10 2008 at 3:53AM PDT

Yea, sounds like you want it to behave the same way as I do.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: isogrifo on Tue, Apr 15 2008 at 11:51AM PDT

I found how to modify the width... you have to change the four options under "WindowBounds" (bottom, left, right, top). If you do this, you can control where the window appears and how wide it is.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: McSvenster on Mon, Mar 10 2008 at 3:30AM PDT

It seems to me that the search window in the Finder is kind off a preconfigured smart search. But I cannot find out, where its configuration files are.

I thought, that the defaults_smart.plist seems only to include the link to the default search: kMDQueryScopeComputer
I found something in MDQuery.h:

<code>
/*!
@function MDQuerySetSearchScope
@discussion Use MDQuerySetSearchScope to limit the results
returned by the query engine to those MDItemRefs that
appear within the specified directories. This may be
used to limit searching to particular volumes. Tilde
paths, or environment variables are not expanded.
Calling this multiple times will replace the previous
options. This must be called before the query is executed.
@param query The query object to modify.
@param scopeDirectories a CFArray of CFStringRef or CFURLRef objects which
specify where to search. For conveinience, the kMDQueryScopeHome,
kMDQueryScopeComputer and kMDQueryScopeNetwork constants may also
be present in this array.
@param scopeOptions additional options for modifying the search.
Currently, pass 0 (zero).
*/
</code>

As You can see I'm just poking around with little knowledge... But could it be, that there are just the two constants : kMDQueryScopeComputer and kMDQueryScopeNetwork where Finder starts in kMDQueryScopeComputer for searches?

Greetings
Sk

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: johnsawyercjs on Tue, Mar 11 2008 at 11:37PM PDT

You might want to fix permissions on any replacement or copy of the default_smart.plist file, once it's moved (back) into System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources, and log out and back in, or even restart the Mac (not just relaunch the Finder) before you make use of the modified default_smart.plist, since the permissions of the replacement or copy won't match those of the original file, and in my experience, this can sometimes cause odd behavior (like Finder relaunching) when you try to open a Find window. Just dragging the default_smart.plist file to another location (from its original location of System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources) (this will actually make a copy at the destination, not remove it from the source folder), will change the file's Owner from System, to the currently logged-in user, which for some reason the System doesn't like, even though Group for both the original and modified copy will still be "wheel", read/write.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: johnsawyercjs on Tue, Mar 11 2008 at 11:58PM PDT

Hmm. The behavior I describe above was what I consistently found under OS 10.4.x, and I assumed it would also be true of 10.5. Wrong assumption. Behavior under OS 10.5 seems to be different when you drag some items out of System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources--documents you drag out, will get moved to the destination, removing it from the Resources folder, and the file's permissions don't get changed. Maybe Apple changed the behavior in 10.5 to accommodate people dragging modified default_smart.plist files into the Finder's Resources folder? But dragging folders out of Resources, or items inside folders that are inside of Resources, copies them to the desination, leaving the original in Resources. Go figure.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: baltwo on Thu, Mar 13 2008 at 8:37PM PDT

That's what I noticed, so I didn't mention it in the hint. IIRC, I didn't muck with the permissions on my changed plist in Tiger, either.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: teszeract on Tue, Jul 15 2008 at 11:25PM PDT

My solution that works completely, but necessitates the use of a macro program.

Please see the screenshot. http://i36.tinypic.com/2djujpt.png

Essentially, one macro method is to set up a couple of button pushes. Done.

I think that every power user should invest in a macro program like Quickeys, iKey, Spark (free) etc.

10.5: Change the Finder's default Find window
Authored by: Frungi on Thu, Oct 15 2009 at 10:01PM PDT

Is it possible to get Spotlight (non-Finder) search to include system files? I'd rather not have to switch apps to quickly open a chat log, for instance.

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