I am trying to figure out how to find the folders on my Mac that hold certain documents. I knew how to do it in OS X 10.9, but my computer is now upgraded to OS X 10.11 and the instructions I have don’t work anymore. How can I search for files and folders in this version of OS X? Apple’s annual updates to its OS X operating system often bring changes to the way the software functions, but in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), you can still search for files using either the desktop or the tool. You can search for files by name, kind, size, date or even keywords within a file’s content.

To search for a file using Finder, click the Mac’s desktop background and press the Command and F keys on the keyboard; you can also get there by clicking the File menu on the Mac’s toolbar and selecting Find. When the Finder window opens, enter your keywords in the search box in the upper-right corner. You can narrow your search with the window’s drop-down menu, which lets you filter by file type and other criteria. Press the Enter key to get your results.

May 28, 2017 - There are many great apps that can help you to find these files. There are also some manual steps to find the largest files and folders on a Mac,.

Click an item in your results list to see the location of the file and its enclosing folders in the path bar at the bottom of the Finder window. (You can also double-click on a folder or subfolder displayed in the path bar to open that folder and see its contents in the main part of the window.) The option for showing or hiding the path bar is under the Finder’s own View menu.

The can be used to search the web — as well as the contents of your computer. Spotlight can also find weather forecasts, sports scores and online videos when you type in search terms like “[city name] weather”; the name of your team; or “[band name, song title] video.” You can also use informally phrased requests like “files I worked on last Thursday” to have Spotlight dig up matching results. To open Spotlight, click the magnifying glass in the Mac’s upper-right corner or press the Command key and the space bar. Grammarly for mac mail.

Type in your search terms and press the Enter key. In the results list, you can open a file by double-clicking it; right-click (or hold down the Control key and click) the open file’s name in its title bar to see where it is on your Mac. In the Spotlight window, you can also scroll to the bottom of the list and choose the Show All in Finder option to see the files from your search results all in one place.