Spotlight is limited. It pretty much only searches in the Users folder and the Applications folder. What if you want to peek into your System folder, or if you’ve misplaced a file somewhere outside of the Users folder?

Try out the locate command from Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities).

1. Launch Terminal

2. To build the locate database we must first type in this command:

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

3. When prompted enter your admin password and wait a few minutes for the database to be built.

4. Using locate, type: locate filename

for example to find all files with the word ‘project’ in the title type: locate project

and to find all aiff files on your Mac type: locate *.aiff

the * in the above command is a wildcard meaning any character(s) at all.

Wildcards

* Matches any character or characters in a filename.

? Matches any one character in a filename.

[ ] Matches one of the characters included inside the [ ] symbols.

For example, suppose that the current directory contains the files:

iphone ilife07 ilife08 ilife09 G3 G4 G5

Some examples of file names and files that would be matched are:

Filename       Files matched

ilife0?……….ilife07 ilife08 ilife09
G[345]……….G3 G4 G5
*……….iphone ilife07 ilife08 ilife09 G3 G4 G5
*5……….G5

Finding the OS X Leopard Intro Music using ‘locate’.

Here’s a fun example, type: locate *.mp3 | grep /System/

grep is a second command that scans the output of the locate command for patterns or names or properties. In the above example it is merely filtering the results to list only those that are in the /System/ path (i.e. the System folder). This way we don’t see your iTunes music collection in the output. The output of the above command is:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Setup\ Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/TransitionSection.bundle/Contents/Resources/intro-sound.mp3

To launch the mp3 from within Terminal (and open it in your default mp3 player), type:

open /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup\ Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/TransitionSection.bundle/Contents/Resources/intro-sound.mp3

or copy the path of the parent folder, /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/TransitionSection.bundle/Contents/Resources/ into a Finder ‘Go To Folder’ Dialog. Finder Menu > Go > ‘Go To Folder’ or ⇧⌘G

Once opened in iTunes or some other audio player you will see the real title of the Leopard Intro Music, MacBuddy_MxEdit_Rev1a

There’s a lot more good stuff buried in the System. Happy Hunting.

1. Juan Olivares, May 15, 2009:

   hi!
   nice tips!
   i;m trying to do the database buta when i do “sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb”
   i got “sudo: /private/etc/sudoers is mode 0644, should be 0440″
   what is that? how do i fix it?
   thanks!!

2. Chris Joslyn, August 27, 2009:

   @Juan: It looks like your file permissions got a little messed up. Easy fix: Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app. Click on Macintosh HD (on the left side). There should be a button at the bottom called “Repair Disk Permissions”. Click that and you should be golden.