Finding specific things

Finding files by extension

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

'All the PDFs' sounds simple and has three different answers depending on the tool.

In Finder

⌘F, then + → Kind → PDF. Kind is a content type, not an extension — it uses macOS's UTI system, so a PDF without a .pdf extension still matches.

To match the extension literally instead, add a criterion of Name → ends with → .pdf.

In the Terminal

find ~ -iname "*.pdf"

-iname is case-insensitive, which matters because .PDF from a scanner is common.

Several types at once:

find ~ \( -iname "*.jpg" -o -iname "*.jpeg" -o -iname "*.heic" -o -iname "*.png" \) -type f

With mdfind, by content type

mdfind "kMDItemContentTypeTree == 'public.image'"

Content type trees are hierarchical, so public.image matches every image format at once without listing extensions. Useful groups: public.image, public.movie, public.audio, public.text, com.adobe.pdf.

Extension vs kind, and why it matters

A file's extension is a hint; macOS also stores a type. They disagree more often than you would think — files from Windows, files renamed by hand, files exported by apps that pick the wrong suffix.

If you are hunting for something that should be a PDF but might not be named like one, search by kind. If you are cleaning up by suffix, search by name.

Combining with other filters

The useful searches combine type with something else: PDFs over 10 MB, images from last month, videos on the external drive. Finder does this with stacked criteria; in a query language it is one line — ext:pdf size:>10mb — which is the form worth learning if you do it often.

Common questions

Why does searching *.pdf miss some PDFs?

They may be named differently or have no extension. Searching by Kind uses the file's type rather than its name.

How do I see file extensions in Finder?

Finder → Settings → Advanced → Show all filename extensions.