Access your Smart Folders from the Spotlight Menu

Here’s a simple tip that will help you get more out of smart folders and Spotlight.

As you probably know, pressing Command-Space brings up the Spotlight menu in Tiger. You can type any text in this menu’s text field, and Spotlight will find your files that contain your search string in their name, content, keyword or Spotlight Comments.

You’ve also probably seen smart folders – these are saved searches for specific types of search, which can be simple (all my PDF files) or multi-criteria (any music files that are larger than 5 MB that I have added in the past week, but that I have never opened).

On problem with smart folders is that once you start using them, you’ll have lots of them. You can place them all in a single folder, which you can then put in your Finder window Sidebar getting access to them quickly. Unfortunately, unless you give them really unique names, you won’t be able to easily call them up from the Spotlight menu or window.

The solution is to use the Spotlight Comments field in the Info window (select a file, then press Command-I to see this field). In this field, type a unique text string – I put “smsc” in mine. Then, in the Spotlight menu, type that string; you’ll see all your smart folders immediately. Select one, press Return, and you’ll open the smart folder in a new Finder window.