# About Find Any File, version 1.8.6

Written by and Copyright © 2005-2012 Thomas Tempelmann
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

This is a program for Mac OS X that lets you search for files on your disks, primarily on HFS formatted ones. (It requires OS X 10.4.1 or later.)

Contrary to Spotlight, it does not use a database but instead uses the file system driver's fast search operations, where available. This lets you search for file properties such as name, dates, size, etc., but not for file content (use Spotlight or EasyFind for that).

Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn't, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search.

Finally, it is quite fast. A search on an entire disk only takes a few seconds.

## Features

Find Any File has a few gems that other search tools do not offer:

1. It sports a new hierarchical view for the found items. You can switch to it using Command-2 or click on the right little icon at the top of the results window:

   The search revealed hundreds of hits. If you'd look at that many results in a flat list, it could be hard to browse. With this new hierarchical view you can directly look for the results in the folders that interest you.

   Also note that some rows are black (and bold) while others are gray (and cursive). The black ones are the ones you had searched for, while the gray ones are just there to show you the enclosing folders, without being direct hits.

   Additionally, there's a yellow so-called Tooltip box which can show you more details of the item the mouse is over. You can turn this box on/off via the menu bar.

2. If you still prefer the flat list view, you can filter the shown items by their name, kind, enclosing folder etc, to further limit the results of your search (see below).
3. You can save your entered searches to files (they'll have the extension ".faf"). You can then double click them in the Finder to have them start the search immediately, or use the saved search as a preset.
4. If you hold the Option key (alt) down in the Find window, the Find button turns into Find All. If you click on it then, you are asked for an administrator password - and then Find Any File will restart with root permissions, being able to find really any file on your Mac's volumes (something that Spotlight won't ever do). Note that this will only work on local disks, not on network mounts, though. And it's only available in the app version from my website (see below), not in the version from the Mac App Store due to restrictions Apple enforces there.

## Search Examples

Have you just installed or launched a program for the first time and like to see what it modified or added to your disks? Here's a way to do that (it excludes .DS_Store files from the results because they're not really relevant to this question).

Searching for files only inside your Music folder that are neither in AAC nor in MP3 format and which are at least a megabyte in size? So you could enter two Name criteria as follows, along with a minimum size. Also note that the search is limited explicitly to the Music folder.

Or you might want to find all Numbers documents created in 2009 only.

## More features

Besides the obvious things you can see by looking at the menus, there are a few things that are not so obvious:

### Searching multiple disks or folders

To search a custom set of disks or folders, simply drop them together onto the popup menu which lets you select where to search.

If you can't drag all the icons at once, you may also add them to an existing set by holding down the Shift key when dropping them onto the popup menu.

### Filtering the results

Use the filter in the flat (non-hierarchical) list to reduce the shown items to the text you enter. Use the menu under the magnifier glass to choose what column to filter on.

### Choosing which columns to show in the list

Right-click on the column titles to get a menu that lets you choose which columns appear in the list.

### Pre-setting the preferred disk to search

When Find Any File is launched, it always defaults to searching the boot volume. If you prefer to search a different volume by default, do this: Launch Find Any File, choose your preferred volume, then use the Save command to save the search criteria to a file. Next time, instead of launching Find Any File directly, open that saved file instead - Find Any File will launch with the presets you chose before.

Alternatively (since version 1.5), you can set up your preferred search and choose Save As Defaults from the File menu in order to have these settings reappear next time you launch Find Any File.

(Note: If you have saved a Search with the option to start the search automatically when opening the file, you can still prevent the search from starting by holding down the Option (alt) key while Find Any File opens the document.)

### Copying the path name of a found item

To copy a path name of a found item to the clipboard, right-click on the path field at the very bottom, where you can then choose from 3 different formats:

Shell style is good for pasting into a Terminal window,
POSIX style is the original unix-style path and
Mac style gives the classic Mac path using ":" as delimiters.

### Resetting your preferences at launch

If you hold down the Option (alt) key at launch if Find Any File, the previously saved defaults won't be loaded, but instead a standard Find window will appear. Use this to circumvent problems such as to prevent opening a unreachable network volume you might have saved as default.

If you hold down both Shift and Option keys when launching Find Any File, you will be prompted to reset all preferences. Use this if windows won't appear any more, or other things you customized are causing trouble.

### Launching Find Any File by a keyboard shortcut, just like it works with Spotlight

This can now (since version 1.6) be enabled directly in the Preferences window of Find Any File.

For instance, to open FAF when pressing Command-F in the Finder, set the Hot Key up as follows:

- Launch Find Any File and open its Preferences window from the menu.
- Click into the field which reads "click to set".
- Hold down the Command key and press the "f" key. Now it should show below: "Hot Key ⌘F is currently active"
- Make sure "Works only in Finder" is selected, not "Works globally".
- To make this shortcut permanent, check the box saying "Install Hot Key at Login"

### More Tips and Help

For more tips and troubleshooting help see the Support page.

## Alternatives to Find Any File

If you like to search for data inside files, and Spotlight doesn't do it for you, have a look at EasyFind by DEVONtechnologies. It offers a few extra search options (e.g. wildcards), displays results a bit neater and has a single-window user interface which you might prefer. Since version 4.6 (released in Nov 2010) it also uses the fast disk search function that Find Any File uses (CatalogSearch), where appropriate. More info here: http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

And if you want to search for specific text in a large set of files inside a directory, try TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/).

## Version History

- 1.0, 26 Dec 08: First release
- 1.0.1, 27 Dec 08: Fixed date entry crash on PPC
- 1.0.2, 29 Dec 08: Move to Trash works now; volume selection is observed with root search and saved searches; results update after moving items.
- 1.1, 13 Jan 09: Can now also search on non-HFS formatted disks; added checkboxes to filter hidden items and bundle contents; hovering with the mouse over an item shows more information about it; new "Delete Immediately" menu command; search for size does not find folders any more; last used window settings (size, view options) are now preserved for next search; new application icon; a few bugs fixed.
- 1.1.1, 18 Mar 09: Works around a bug in Mac OS 10.5.6, preventing it from searching the same network volume multiple times. Also preserves its window positions between launches.
- 1.1.2, 31 Mar 09: No more warnings in the Console about the data not being "proper UTF-8".
- 1.2, 11 May 09: The hovering tooltip in the Results window can be dis-/enabled via the menu (View->Hide Details or Show Details); Files can be dropped onto the search forms to set name, date, size, creator and filetype codes; Changing search criterion between modification and creation date does not reset its value any more; Enhanced display of file sizes; Sorting is retained when the Show hidden and Show package contents options are changed; Search can now even be saved if no valid criterion was entered yet; Text in lists can be made bigger via the View menu; Added option to search remote volumes only.
- 1.2.1, 13 May 09: Fixed a potential "Nil Object" crash (inside FoundItem.Exists) that was introduced in v1.2.
- 1.3, 1 Dec 09: New features: New name criterion: "Begins with" and "Ends in" - the latter being especially useful to find specific file extensions. Saving a Search provides choice whether to autorun it or not. Added a "Window" menu to the menu bar. Added automatic online check for program updates via Sparkle (Many thanks to Charles Yeomans for making these features, i.e. Window menu and Sparkle, freely available in REALbasic). Sorting choice in result windows is now remembered. Bug fixes: No more occasional endless beeping and freezing during extended searches. Makes sure windows do not disappear any more after switching to a smaller monitor. When dragging items from Results list, their outlines appear now correctly. No more "double free" messages in Console Log.
- 1.3.1, 2 Dec 09: Bug fix: No more growing fonts in the date fields on PowerPC Macs (G4, G5) running Leopard (10.5.x).
- 1.4, 23 Dec 09: New features: You can now search for recent changes (i.e. dates within the past X minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years). You can now tell when you're doing searches as Root (Find All) by looking at the menu bar's app name or at the name in the Dock. Bug fixes: Newly opened windows do not cover existing windows any more. Opening a .faf file does not lose "Name" criteria any more from the leftmost popup menu.
- 1.4.1, 3 Jan 10: Bug fix: Works on multiple accounts again.
- 1.4.2, 4 Jan 10: Bug fix: The position and size of Result windows is again remembered (broken since v1.4).
- 1.5, 20 Dec 10: New features: Search inside a folder of your choice instead of entire disks. Some criteria (name, date and size) can now be repeated for combined conditions. New name criterion "does not contain". Added Quick Look (only works on Mac OS 10.6 and later). New Get Info command to have the Finder show an item's Information window. Sizes can now be entered with units, e.g. 10MB (supported units are: k, m, g). New menu command Save As Defaults remembers the current Find criteria. New Preferences window, where various options can be chosen. Preferences window offers a Reset button to clear all previously made settings (is practically identical to deleting the preferences file). Removed the criterion Negate conditions because it caused confusion and is hardly ever used (if you need it, contact me – there's a secret switch for it). If no items are found, the Results window does not open any more and a beep sound is played instead. Command-F quickly brings you back to the Find window if a Results window is frontmost. Bug fixes: Date searches "within the past" work now with certain other combinations (such as "Name ends in" and "Name begins with"), same for "is folder is false" and for searching for dates on PowerPC Macs. No more internal errors when dropping a file onto the input fields for name, type file, etc. Text looks better now on Japanese systems. Made the field for entering dates a bit wider. Improved positioning of windows (avoiding overlaps and remembering previous positions). No more unsorted results after a fresh set of preferences. Double clicking multiple results now opens all selected items instead of just the one clicked on.
- 1.5.1, 9 Jan 11: Bug fix: Searching for file sizes using units (e.g. "10 MB") works correctly if searching inside just a folder or using combined criteria.
- 1.5.2, 4 Feb 11: Special version for Mac & i
  Bug fix: Searching for names with accented characters (e.g. umlauts) works correctly if searching inside just a folder or using combined criteria.
- 1.5.3, 24 Mar 11: New features: Localized to French and German. Lots of little user interface improvements.
  Bug fixes: Much more responsive when slow network volumes (iDisk) are mounted. Fixed all other reported issues.
- 1.5.4, 3 Apr 11: Bug fix: Sorting of dates works again (got broken in 1.5.3).
- 1.5.5, 5 Apr 11: New: Localized to Italian.
- 1.6: New features: Hot Key: You can now define a shortcut to launch FAF. Spanish localization.
  Bug fixes: OSX's internal volumes "net" and "home" aren't getting listed any more. "Move To Trash" and "Reveal In Finder" work now with non-Roman file names such as Japanese.
- 1.6.1: Bug fix: Hot Key now works on PPC Macs.
- 1.7: New features:
  - Specify multiple disks or folders for a single search.
  - Filter results (only in flat view, not in tree view).
  - More columns in results list (creation date, folder name, path, label).
  - Shows Finder labels by color, similar to the Finder.
  - Can search the current Finder selection.
  Improvements:
  - Showing a large amount (several 1000s) of found items is much faster now.
  - Find window is more responsive during search of entire disks and on network volumes.
  Bug fixes:
  - No more crash when copying paths with more than one selected item.
  - Searching only on local or remote volumes works again as expected.
  - Searching for Aliases fixed.
  - Hotkey fixes: Loads saved defaults even if option key was part the hotkey presses; Works again on OSX Tiger
- 1.7.1: Improvements:
  - A progress bar is now shown whilst updating the results list.
  Bug fixes:
  - FileVault volumes are searchable again.
  - Sorting is case-insentive again.
  - Sorting remains intact when columns are re-arranged.
  - Modified files don't appear as <item has disappeared> any more.
  - FAF doesn't freeze any more if "Move To Trash" failed with an error message from the Finder.
  - No more crash (NilObjectException) after deleting files.
  - No more occasional crash (ThreadAlreadyRunningException) when updating the results list.
- 1.7.2: Improvements:
  - Sizes of apps and other bundles (packages) are now getting shown in the results.
  - New preference setting to turn off the new app size calculation in case they cause performance issues.
  - New preference setting to re-enable the restoring of previously set Show... settings in the Results window.
  Bug fixes:
  - Doesn't show disappeared items and unrelated network volumes at the root of the hierarchical view any more.
- 1.8: New features:
  - Lots of new search criteria:
    - Name matches pattern: Lets you enter wildcards. Use "*" as a "don't care" placeholder. Examples: Looking for "*.pdf" finds all ending in ".pdf", looking for "Invoice*2011*" finds all that start with "invoice" and thereafter contain "2011".
    - Name contains words: Matches only file names that contain the given word(s). E.g. looking for "mac" would find "Mac OS.pdf" but not "Macintosh.pdf". You may enter multiple word in one line, separated by spaces.
    - Case sensitive: If set to "Yes", the case of entered names is matched for the search as well.
    - Label: Find specific labels. To find all items with any label, use "Label - equals - None" along with "Negate conditions - is true".
    - Pass Results to <application> and Limit Amount: Passes the found items to the specified app instead of showing them in a window.
    - Folder Depth: Limits the search depth (also forces a "slow" recursive search).
    - It's possible to limit the search to visible, non-package and non-trashed items. When performing a "fast" search, these only set the display options, while with "slow" searches they actually avoid hidden folders and contents of packages and the trash, which makes "slow" searches faster, especially on network volumes.
  - New right-click options for found items:
    - Open With .... Works even with folders - you can open the folder in Terminal.app with it, for instance.
    - Labels can be set and cleared.
    - Make Visible and Make Invisible. Note that this works only with items whose names do not start with a period (".").
  - Items that are in the Trash can be hidden from the results.
  Improvements:
  - The Copy menu command on found items works now like the Finder's. For instance, you can then perform “Paste” in a Finder window to copy the files into that folder.
  - The Date criterion offers two new shortcuts for "today" and "yesterday".
  - The Add Choice button offers a menu for choosing the to-be-added criterion.
  - The Save menu command can be used in the Results window, too.
  - Slight performance optimizations when showing results from a network volume (icon and kind are now updated slightly delayed, making scrolling more fluent).
  Bug fixes:
  - FAF doesn't take 30 seconds to launch any more on some Macs
  - Remembers the "show invisibles" and "show package contents" options again if chosen so in the Preferences.
  - Changing font and row height works again in Results window.
  - Doesn't prevent disks from being ejected after a search any more.
  - Creation date column shows the actual creation date instead of the modification date.
  - File times are now precise instead of being offset by a few minutes depending on the time zone.
  - Now restores columns that were accidentally set to zero width.
- 1.8.1: Bug fixes:
  - File times aren't off by 1 hr any more if they had a different daylight savings state.
  - Searching on PGP volumes (and possibly other special volumes types) works again.
  - Input field has correct width if prefs option "Increase Input Fields Height" is checked.
- 1.8.2: Bug fixes:
  - Searching for Creator and FileType codes works now in complex (and folder-specific) searches.
- 1.8.3: Bug fixes:
  - Automatically restores columns in Results window if they got messed up.
  - French text "Traitement des données" corrected.
- 1.8.4:
  - New: Portuguese localization.
  - New: "Open Recent" menu to re-open previously performed searches.
  - New: Pressing Option or Command key while clicking the "Add Choice" button does not show the menu but adds a new choice immediately, like in pre-1.8 versions.
  - Bug fixes.
- 1.8.5:
  - Now excludes the files saved as Recent Searches from the results.
  - The collection of Recent searches can now be cleared and also entirely disabled in the preferences.
  - Copying results to the clipboard now includes all columns (separated by Tab characters), unless Shift or Option is held down when Copying.
  - Using Select All in the hierarchical view does not select the interim folders any more but only the actually searched items.
  - Can now search for the size of resource forks (available only in expert mode)
  - By adding an item named "FindAnyFile" to your keychain, containing an admin user's name and password, FAF won't ask for your login any more when doing Find All.
  - Find All can now be made the default by issuing this command in Terminal: defaults write org.tempel.findanyfile AlwaysFindAll -bool YES
  - Fixes an issue with resizing columns directly after adding a column to the results list.
  - No more crash when opening a saved search (.faf) using the File/Open menu command.
  - No more crash when righting clicking on the path at the bottom of the Results window and then not choosing any of the options.
  - Improves sorting by paths by not taking the file name into account any more.
  - Adds Norwegian, Swedisch and Czech localization.
- 1.8.6:
  - Does not crash any more with a "Runtime Error" when the "Recent Searches" folder or another searched folder is not readable.
  - Fixes an issue that made searches on network volumes extremely (and embarrasingly) slow.
  - Fixes display issues when resizing the results columns and when using Quick Look.
  - When viewing an item with Quick Look, it can now be opened by pressing Cmd+O.

## Acknowledgements

Icon design by Chris Paveglio (www.paveglio.com)

I also thank Michael Berglund, Edward Loveall and especially Alexey Volokhov for their contributions of alternative icons.

Charles Yeomans provided a lot of helpful code (MacOSLib, a better PopupMenu)

I am grateful to Kuniaki Maruyama from Japan for making me aware of a REALbasic font display problem on japanese OS X systems, and for helping me fix it.

French translation by Ronald A. Leroux and Valdemar de Sousa, proofreading by Renaud Boisjoly and Stéphane Pinel.

Italian translation by Vincenzo Boiano (VinBoiSoft).

Norwegian and Czech translation by Jakob Englund.

Swedish translation by Frank Winterpil.

Spanish translation by Natalia Portillo.

Portuguese translation by Fernando Valente.

Finally, many thanks to all the testers for the 1.5 release. Out of ~150 who contacted me directly in the past, thanking for FAF or making inquiries, 42 of those responded when I asked them for help with testing, and all of them were helpful, many of them pointing out problems I overlooked, making good suggestions or helping me with decisions. It was an uplifting experience.

This tool's design was inspired by the Classic Mac OS' Find File application, which also appeared under the name Sherlock for a while.

## Questions, Feedback, Contact

To contact me, write to tempelmann@gmail.com
The app's website is: http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

And now, I hope you enjoy using Find Any File.