Spotlight integrated Quick Look

[funkahdafi]

Hi,

according to Apple's list of new features, Spotlight is supposed to have built in Quick Look so you can preview search results without having to open the corresponding app. How is that supposed to work? The space key doesn't work here obviously.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Wait, what? Is this new?

QuickLook has been integrated for a very, very long time:

 

[funkahdafi]

Well it's listed as a new feature here: https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/features/

See the Spotlight section on this page. It's highlighted as a big new thing.

How do you invoke Quick Look from within the Spotlight search results?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

How do you invoke Quick Look from within the Spotlight search results?

Well, where I am all the way back in OS X 10.9, I just hover on the result with my cursor, and the Quick Look preview in my screenshot opens after a half-second or so.

I don't remember how it was activated in 10.10–10.13, I guess it's theoretically possible they took it out when Spotlight was redesigned in Yosemite?

 

[funkahdafi]

Does anybody who actually uses Big Sur know the answer?

 

[Maetzle]

Just tired and I just have to left-click on the result and it shows a preview. Doesn't work with every file, but works for me for pictures, .docx files, Dictionary, calculator, ...

 

[funkahdafi]

Oh wow. I was only trying it on PDFs. Didn't work there and so I blindly assumed it wouldn't work for anything. Thanks for checking, @Maetzle

 

[Maetzle]

Maybe that was updated since you tried it, but it works for PDFs too here.

 

[funkahdafi]

Weird. Doesn't work for PDFs here. I am running the latest public beta. Maybe because I have a different default app set for PDFs?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

So does Mojave not do that? Because I can definitely use QuickLook in Spotlight for PDFs over here on Mavericks.