Searchbar/launcher that lets me search in specific favourite folders

[StartRightNow]

Hi!

I am switching over from PC to Mac and there is a gap in utility that I can’t seem to find any apps that covers.

Basically I want to be able to easily and quickly search in specific folders on a network disk. I did this previously with Listary, where I would pop up a spotlight-like search bar and then write a keyword for a specific folder and then be able to search only within that folder.

I work at a company where we mainly work in projects, and the project files are places into folders on a server. Basically a very long list of folder. Each project has a pre-set folder structure that is pretty hefty with 100+ folders, which is why the search is so useful. I work with 5-10 project at the time and each project lasts between a couple of month to a couple of years. A project could be dormant for a couple of months and then all of a sudden you need to find a specific file, which is why searching was so brilliant.

Listary saved me so much time. Since folder structure within all the projects are the same it’s difficult to search without this “sub-search” or “favourites” feature. I feel this way of working can’t be that unique, but I’m struggling to find an app that can do this. Is there anyone who has any suggestions?

I have tried Launchbar, Alfred, DefaultFolderX and FastFileFinder. And spotlight of course. In launchbar I was able to associate a folder with a keyword, but it didn’t search the files within that folder. In DefaultFolderX you can set favourites associated with a keystroke, but that is a bit too specific and I am going to forget it. Alfred doesn’t seem to have anything out of the box.

Thanks!

 

[mmkerc]

I am not aware of a program that does that specifically, but in finder if you select "PROJECT X/ subfolder COST and click the spotlight icon (search icon, upper right hand corner) you then type your file name "June cost rpt" at the top of the window you get the option to search This Mac, or just the folder (and subfolders within) you are in. in my example Cost. I think this will do what you want.

 

[Tagbert]

I am not aware of a program that does that specifically, but in finder if you select "PROJECT X/ subfolder COST and click the spotlight icon (search icon, upper right hand corner) you then type your file name "June cost rpt" at the top of the window you get the option to search This Mac, or just the folder (and subfolders within) you are in. in my example Cost. I think this will do what you want.

Hi!

I am switching over from PC to Mac and there is a gap in utility that I can’t seem to find any apps that covers.

Basically I want to be able to easily and quickly search in specific folders on a network disk. I did this previously with Listary, where I would pop up a spotlight-like search bar and then write a keyword for a specific folder and then be able to search only within that folder.

I work at a company where we mainly work in projects, and the project files are places into folders on a server. Basically a very long list of folder. Each project has a pre-set folder structure that is pretty hefty with 100+ folders, which is why the search is so useful. I work with 5-10 project at the time and each project lasts between a couple of month to a couple of years. A project could be dormant for a couple of months and then all of a sudden you need to find a specific file, which is why searching was so brilliant.

Listary saved me so much time. Since folder structure within all the projects are the same it’s difficult to search without this “sub-search” or “favourites” feature. I feel this way of working can’t be that unique, but I’m struggling to find an app that can do this. Is there anyone who has any suggestions?

I have tried Launchbar, Alfred, DefaultFolderX and FastFileFinder. And spotlight of course. In launchbar I was able to associate a folder with a keyword, but it didn’t search the files within that folder. In DefaultFolderX you can set favourites associated with a keystroke, but that is a bit too specific and I am going to forget it. Alfred doesn’t seem to have anything out of the box.

Thanks!

I agree with mmkerc

I also recommend setting “current folder” as the default for the Finder search. There is a good chance that what you are looking for will be in the current Finder folder and if not, it’s an easy click on the “search the whole Mac” option. It also makes the initial search faster by limiting it.

I keep a few favorite folders open in tabs in Finder all the time and it is easy to get to those files any time. I keep Finder running all the time.

I’ve heard that people sometimes have trouble getting Mac OS to automatically connect to external servers on reboot. I haven’t needed to do that myself in a while as all of my work file sharing is done through Onedrive anymore so i haven’t any more details for you.

 

[StartRightNow]

I agree with mmkerc

I also recommend setting “current folder” as the default for the Finder search. There is a good chance that what you are looking for will be in the current Finder folder and if not, it’s an easy click on the “search the whole Mac” option. It also makes the initial search faster by limiting it.

I keep a few favorite folders open in tabs in Finder all the time and it is easy to get to those files any time. I keep Finder running all the time.

I’ve heard that people sometimes have trouble getting Mac OS to automatically connect to external servers on reboot. I haven’t needed to do that myself in a while as all of my work file sharing is done through Onedrive anymore so i haven’t any more details for you.

Thank you, I have set so spotlight automatically searches the local folder but it is soo slow. It might absolutely have something to do with the connection with the external servers. It seems like spotlight isn’t indexing them properly. Might a have look into that.

 

[HDFan]

search in specific folders on a network disk.

Not sure I understand the problem.

1. If the files all have some project identifier ID then a search for that ID will show you all files with that identifier. To go to the folder you can highlight the file and click on the folder path displayed at the bottom of the finder window.



2. You can quickly jump to a folder in a finder window by pressing a key to jump to that letter. "J" in this case jumps me to all the first folder/file starting with "J". Not too helpful if all of the folders start with the same letter.

If Spotlight is performing poorly then yes, first place to investigate.

Do you know what the connection speed is to the external servers? You can run a BlackMagic test to find out.

 

[TheIntruder]

EasyFind doesn't support automation features, or shortcuts, but does support syntax queries.

And it doesn't rely on Spotlight indexes, which can be advantageous.

A nice, small, freeware tool.

 

[mmkerc]

It has been a long time since I connected to a remote network so not sure if this would work in terms of indexing or even is the various security processes would allow, but if you create an alias of your project folders on your Mac I believe Spotlight will index the alias thus improving the speed.

 

[Tagbert]

Thank you, I have set so spotlight automatically searches the local folder but it is soo slow. It might absolutely have something to do with the connection with the external servers. It seems like spotlight isn’t indexing them properly. Might a have look into that.

The slowness is definitely due to the network connection but I don’t know that Spotlight would index a non-local directory. It is probably doing a real time scan of the files which would slow things down a lot. I’m not saying that it doesn’t index but I’ve never heard that it does and I suspect that is the case.

 

[gregmac19]

I am not sure it would be better than Spotlight here, but Find Any File (https://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/) is a great tool to have on the Mac.

 

[optijaz]

Hi!

I am switching over from PC to Mac and there is a gap in utility that I can’t seem to find any apps that covers.

Basically I want to be able to easily and quickly search in specific folders on a network disk. I did this previously with Listary, where I would pop up a spotlight-like search bar and then write a keyword for a specific folder and then be able to search only within that folder.

I work at a company where we mainly work in projects, and the project files are places into folders on a server. Basically a very long list of folder. Each project has a pre-set folder structure that is pretty hefty with 100+ folders, which is why the search is so useful. I work with 5-10 project at the time and each project lasts between a couple of month to a couple of years. A project could be dormant for a couple of months and then all of a sudden you need to find a specific file, which is why searching was so brilliant.

Listary saved me so much time. Since folder structure within all the projects are the same it’s difficult to search without this “sub-search” or “favourites” feature. I feel this way of working can’t be that unique, but I’m struggling to find an app that can do this. Is there anyone who has any suggestions?

I have tried Launchbar, Alfred, DefaultFolderX and FastFileFinder. And spotlight of course. In launchbar I was able to associate a folder with a keyword, but it didn’t search the files within that folder. In DefaultFolderX you can set favourites associated with a keystroke, but that is a bit too specific and I am going to forget it. Alfred doesn’t seem to have anything out of the box.

Thanks!

LaunchBar should have you covered.
I think you might've been very close and just missed it.
LaunchBar is able to index a folder that you add to it, you are able to specify "folders" "PDFs" or a number of other options.
Some info is available here https://www.obdev.at/resources/launchbar/help/FilesAndFolders.html

Steps to achieve:
1. Open the LaunchBar index
2. select "+" in bottom left of window and "add folder"
3. Select the folder in the index. And you will see [ Index | Options ] buttons on the top right.
4. Select Options. Then you are able to adjust "search scope" "search for" etc in this area
(tip here: only index what you need, the more in there the more files to ignore and it can slow your system down)
5. Once you have made your changes. Select Index from from the [ Index | Options ] at top right. And you should see a list of your files or the refresh icon doing it's thing across the bottom of the window.
This is a list of the index of files that LaunchBar has found. If the list is empty they wont show up and there might be some other issue.

What I have done over the years to deal with network folders is create a folder in my home folder `~/Network drives` and drag in any drives that I need easy access to, after I have mounted them, as an alias. You then can rename them however you like to get some organisation. It is then a matter of just opening that folder and selecting the drive to get quick access to it.
Works great with LaunchBar again and I think it has similarities in to Windows Network Locations (though a manual version) if that's what you are used to as well.