Finding specific things

Searching by filename

Updated 2026-07-31 · 3 min read

Most searches are filename searches, and macOS makes that the hardest kind to do cleanly.

The problem

Spotlight blends filename matches with content matches and ranks them together. A document mentioning "budget" can outrank the file named budget.xlsx.

Finder, name only

⌘F → + → set the row to Name → matches. Add Name → begins with for tighter matching. Save the search as a Smart Folder and you never rebuild it.

Terminal

find ~ -iname "*budget*"
mdfind -name budget

mdfind -name uses the index and is instant; find reads the disk and is complete.

Partial names

The realistic case is remembering fragments. find and mdfind both do substring matching by default with wildcards, so *bud*2026* works.

Word-boundary matching — where cs finds CarSense — is not something the built-in tools do, and it is one of the more useful behaviours a dedicated index adds.

Case

APFS is case-insensitive by default, so Budget.xlsx and budget.xlsx are the same name. Use -iname rather than -name with find to match that behaviour.

Common questions

Why does Spotlight rank a document above the file I named?

It scores content relevance alongside filename matches. Finder's Name → matches criterion removes content from consideration.

What is the fastest way to search filenames only?

mdfind -name term from the Terminal, or a dedicated filename index.