Okay, so one thing I've wanted to be able to do for ages now in OS X is to create or view a combined Applications folder that displays the contents of both /Applications and ~/Applications (assume it exists). Now, I know LaunchPad can do this, but I'd still like to be able to do this in a regular Finder window, for example using a Smart Folder. Is this possible, and if so, what are the steps for doing this (either in the Finder itself, or via command line)? I've experimented for searches of my entire computer for all Applications, however this only returns the application bundles themselves, ignoring any enclosing folders. Really I just want top level items for each of the applications folders; for example, I'd like to see the /Applications/Utilities folder, not its contents.

Does anybody know how to setup a smart folder as Finders default folder? If I try to select the smart folder in Finder settings, the "choose" button is deactivated like the screenshot shows:

I have a set of Smart Folders in High Sierra that index documents on a USB hard drive. The Smart Folders are saved on the USB drive and they work. I have moved the whole content including therefore the Smart Folders on another USB drive and they have stopped working. I have opened one of the savedSearch file and I see that the path is referred many times as absolute. SearchScopes /Volumes/mybackup/documents .... I have tried to edit the file manually from command line with vim, but the old path doesn't change, as it seems that something is restoring the original saved search. The question: is there a way to modify all the searches with a script, without having to delete and recreate them from scratch ?

My feeling is that this problem is somehow related to my question macOS creates "by itself" a new directory and moves files to it : I can see my Documents folder from my zsh command line: 1-0-12:19) ~: command ls -ld D* drwx------@ 3 ronaldfischer staff 96 2 Oct 11:27 Desktop drwx------@ 11 ronaldfischer staff 352 27 Dec 17:02 Documents drwx------+ 18 ronaldfischer staff 576 28 Dec 09:04 Downloads lrwxr-xr-x 1 ronaldfischer staff 49 14 Apr 2023 Dropbox -> /Users/ronaldfischer/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox (1-0-12:19) ~: stat Documents 16777221 12904042042 drwx------ 11 ronaldfischer staff 0 352 "Dec 27 17:02:04 2023" "Dec 27 17:02:02 2023" "Dec 28 08:26:55 2023" "Jan 1 01:00:00 1970" 4096 0 0 Documents But when I open Finder I don't see this folder, though I see all other entries in my home directory: Of course I can do from the command line something like open $HOME/Documents and then see the content of this directory, but why can't Finder show me its content when it displays the entries in $HOME? What is so special with this folder? **UPDATE** Based on the comment by _nohillside_, I wanted to verify whether "Documents in iCloud is enabled or disabled". I googled the following recommendation for doing so: 1. Open Finder and go to the iCloud Drive folder. 1. Drag an item to the Trash, or move it to a different folder on your Mac. Clicking on iCloud Drive in folder brings up the following picture: However I can so see what i can infer from this picture. We see that it contains a folder named Documents, but it also contains a folder named i.e. Downloads, and I *do* see a Downloads folder in my Finder inside the home directory; I just don't see a Documents folder. So what is the difference between Documents and Downloads? For the safe side, I checked my iPafd and went there to iCloud drive in the file manager, and I did find there a folder Dowloads with the same content than in my Mac (so this folder is obviously shared), and another folder named Dokumente (which is German for "documents"), and contains the same content as the Documents folder inside my MacOS. So I guess this is somehow shared as well. Interestingly, there is one subdirectory in Documents (respectively Dokumente) which is named Documents - Ronald’s MacBook Pro (including the spaces and special characters), which contains all that original stuff I had previously in my Documents folder. I would like to end up in a situation, where my MacBook has its own Documents folder, and this folder should contain the content which is now Documents - Ronald’s MacBook Pro. I don't mind the Downloads folder continues to be shared. I don't want to loose any files; what would be the recommended process then? I would like to sketch my idea how to solve the problem first, and ask you to approve it as correct, or suggest a better way. Note that I'm using zsh: First i back up the important stuff: cd mkdir DocumentsOriginal mv -r 'Documents/Documents - Ronald’s MacBook Pro/*(D)' DocumentsOriginal rmdir 'Documents/Documents - Ronald’s MacBook Pro/*(D)' Now I have two directories: The stuff which still is visible in Documents (and hence also in the Dokumente folder on the iPad) is stuff I want to **keep** shared, perhaps under a new name DocumentsShared. The stuff which is now in DocumentsOriginal is what I want to have only on my MacBook. How to achieve this? Of course I could now do a mv Documents DocumentsShared mv Documents Original Documents but I doubt that this will tell iCloud about my intentions, because I fear that my local Documents is still coupled somehow to the Dokumente folder on the iPad. As for the name, I do not insist that the folders are named differently on MacBook and iPad. Actually I prefer having shared folders named the same accross devices, and I find the current Documents/Dokumente naming confusing. So if I would end up seeing a folder DocumentsShared on the iPad instead of the present Dokumente folder, this would be an ideal solution.

Several weeks ago, Apple Mail on my MacBook Pro M1 running Ventura suddenly no longer showed any e-mails in my smart folders (such as "Today" or "Unread"). Also, Mail's search was no longer working. The behavior is especially strange because when I click on the "Unread" folder, it comes up empty, but fills with unread e-mails over the next minutes/hour. However, once I select another folder and then return to "Unread", there are again no e-mails and I have to wait again for a long time for it to fill up again. I read that Mail's search is connected with Spotlight, but the strange thing is that searching with Spotlight is not affected. So what I do at the moment when searching for an e-mail, is I use Spotlight for that search and then open the e-mail from there. I also read that the problem could be related to Mail's e-mail index. I have removed them several times and the database was rebuilt upon restarting Mail, but to no avail. So I decided to wait until the release of macOS Sonoma, which I updated to today, hoping that a new mail client or something like that would fix the problem. Again, no change. Mail started by updating its database, but the result is the same. Does anybody have an idea what else I could do? I know that a fresh install from scratch would probably the last option, but even then the problem might return in case the issue has also become part of my backup. So I would try any other possible solution first. Here's an animated GIF to maybe make it a bit clearer:

I'm trying to sync Gmail with the Apple Mail client and setup a Smart Mailbox of important emails that are unread. The Gmail emails sync correctly, in various folders as on Gmail. However, when I try to create a smart mailbox, they don't filter in and when you go to edit that smart mailbox, the filters reset. See images below: Resets to 'No mailbox selected' The Gmail mails are syncing and filtering correctly, as on Gmail. The smart mailbox works for iCloud accounts though and Apple support wasn't helpful. They said it's Google's problem (even though that doesn't make sense) and even refused to create a ticket for further investigation. Google says that since the emails are syncing and filtering, the problem isn't at their end, it is with the way the Apple Mail client works (and that makes sense). Can anyone please help me with a fix here? [Device: MacBook Pro M2 Pro 2023, MacOS Sonoma 14.0]

I would like to be able to have a folder on my desktop, and a folder elsewhere in finder such that when I make changes/add items to the folder on my desktop, the folder elsewhere receives the same changes/items. Right now I have a folder in my users profile, and a link to that folder on my desktop, but I can't access the contents of that folder when I'm away from my laptop. Since my desktop is uploaded to iCloud, I can see the link, but can't access the folder since the contents are actually stored locally. Ideally, I'd like to be able to access the contents from my iPad as well using iCloud. Any ideas?

I'm using the fairly old version 9.3 of Mail.app on a computer running El Capitan; I just set up my Gmail account with it, and it seems to be correctly syncing. For organization purposes, I would love to have a smart mailbox that simply contains every message not in another specific mailbox *(edit: that is, a folder)*, which I'll call A. The problem is that I don't keep any messages directly in A -- I keep them in A's sub-mailboxes *(sub-folders)* B, C, etc, and the sub-sub-mailboxes of those in turn. So the smart mailbox is not very useful. Is there any way I can make my dream a reality: A mailbox that only lists messages that are not inside Mailbox A *at any level*?

I want to create a Smart Folder in Finder that shows videos with height >= width. Is that possible? The UI for a comparison lets me compare width with a number like 3800, not with height:

I'm practicing creating Smart Folders and they appear in Favorites. I understand they display the results of searches and are not real folders, but they still represent extra work the OS has to do, so if during my practice I create 100 "test" Smart Folders I will like to make sure that I can delete these searches when they are no longer needed. **Question:** How to delete or remove the macOS *Smart Folder searches* when I no longer need them? I'm not just asking how to make them disappear, I'd like to be sure the underlying search process stops as well. Right now I just grabbed one In Finder's Favorites and tried to drag it to the desktop but it seems to have disappeared, at least I can't find it. But is the underlying search also gone? Can do this many times and be sure that I'm not building up a long list of searches? - https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/mac-help/mchlp2804/10.15/mac/10.15 explains how to create them, but not how to make them go away when they are no longer needed. - https://tipandtech.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/delete-smart-folder-in-finder/ says command-drag them to delete them but it's 10 years old and doesn't feel sufficiently authoritative.

I'd like to create Smart Folders in the Finder favorite bars that I can access from different applications. Those Smart Folders will mostly contain regular folders of current projects I'm working on. The regular folders show up correctly in the Finder Favorites sidebar, and if using an application (say, Keynote), in the Save dialog. However if I want to open a keynote file that is located in /Smart Folder/RegularFolder /RegularFolder does not show up in the Smart Folder when accessed through the Open File dialog. The same thing occurs if I tag a folder and then try to navigate to that folder from the open file dialog to the Tags sidebar. Is this the expected behavior? Am I missing something?

# Smart Folder Exclude Folder Ultimately I want the result of this find command to be a smart folder. The criteria aren't that complicated: - name should be "README.md" - type should be file - path should not contain "node_modules" find /Users/me/Documents -type f -name README.md -not -path "*/node_modules/*" The problem is that the smart folders criteria operator list seems to be lacking a does not contain option. The available options are: - matches - contains - begins with - ends with - is - is not Is it possible to accomplish this and if so then how? ## Edit 1 I found that by holding the option key I am able to add a negation clause to the smart folder search criteria but I cannot seem to successfully exclude the node_modules folder. It is unclear which criteria to use but none of the ones I have tried seem to work: - Document Container - Containing Folder Names - Folder Name I have tried combining these with the following operators: - contains - matches and with the following terms: - node_modules - *node_modules* in case it supports wildcard searches. I have tried all combinations of the above filters, operators and terms. The documentation is so poor on the subject.

***TL;DR***- has anyone found a way to assign Tags or modify the Description/Comments on stock apps in macOS? I'm currently working on creating Smart Folders based on Tags and it's working incredibly well, even better than I expected; discovered something about Xcode that I probably wouldn't have known about without having accidentally stumbled across it during this process [Can provide more details on the discovery if you are interested.]. Unfortunately, there are quite a few stock apps that do not allow manipulation of their information, namely Tags, Description, and Comments. Has anyone found a way to assign Tags or modify the Description/Comments on stock apps in macOS?

I am trying to make some Smart Folders to compensate for the woefully useless **Recents** folder but I am having some problems trying to filter out things I don't want to appear. One of them is excluding anything that is anywhere within the $HOME/Library directory or some approximation of that. I looked into the additional file attributes that are usable as search criteria that can be used in making a Smart Folder (in other words, the list that comes up when you click "other" in the search criteria menu) for things like "path", "has parent directory", or anything similar which would indicate the file/folder is buried in $HOME/Library somewhere. "Name" only pertains to actual file name and "Document Container" only pertains to the immediate parent directory. I cannot find any attribute whatsoever which might have the full path shown. Is there a work-around for this, or perhaps, is there a file attribute that has this info that I am simply not seeing that is available? Anyone know iff

What are smart folders in the macOS Finder? What can they do, and how do you use them?

Problem = I've created a smart mailbox in macOS Mail for "Unread" messages with the following rules: > Contains messages that match all of the following conditions: > > - Message is in the mailbox: Inbox > - Message is unread The smart mailbox will always *correctly* include *unread* messages in my inbox. But often, it will *incorrectly* include *read* messages in my inbox. Any ideas on how I can fix this? Other information and troubleshooting steps so far = - Currently using macOS Sierra 10.12.6 - Email account is hosted by Google - Other smart mailboxes with other rules still work properly. - If I use the filter button in my inbox, Mail will properly perform filtering -- even for unread messages. - I tried marking the problematic messages as unread and then as read again. Afterwards, the number next to the title of the "Unread" mailbox will decrease (because I have taken steps to mark messages as read), but the "Unread" mailbox itself will still list those messages (even though they are read). - I tried the above step from gmail.com. Same result. - I tried getting new mail. Nothing changes. I tried rebuilding my mailboxes. No rebuilding happens. - I tried rebooting my computer in safe mode. Then, any smart mailbox I created would contain no messages regardless of the rules I set. - There doesn't seem to be any pattern to which messages are problematic. - My "Unread" smart mailbox still behaves properly for non-problematic messages even if it contains problematic messages. - Once a problematic message appears in my "Unread" smart mailbox, it will stay there for a few days. Then, it will suddenly leave "Unread" and sit in my Inbox where it belongs.

This is a long shot, but is it possible to create a Smart Folder which, instead of building its search using the Search Criteria UI, but instead use the properly formatted output of necessary for a Smart Folder from an AppleScript or bash script which would create said list? For example, is it possible to create a script that would use something like ack or locate to instantly search a folder hierarchy and then apply a regex to match a specific set of files within that list? The search criteria usable in Spotlight search has a pretty weak set of metadata attributes that are available in the Finder UI so it would be amazing to be able to make my own function that outputs directly into the Smart Folders construct. I suppose I could make an independent script that doesn't use Finder or Spotlight at all which regularly refreshes a directory's contents with a set of symlinks, but that seems unnecessarily resource intensive when ideally the script need only be executed with the folder is opened or referenced. Integration with Finder at even a rudimentary level would be hugely advantageous. I suspect folder actions might be a way to trigger this, but again I feel like the complexity level would make this inefficient.

I am using tags to label all my documents in Finder, and Smart Folders to organise them, but I'm running into a roadblock. Lets say I have a bunch of documents with the tag "fruits", and some -- but not all -- documents also have additional tags like "apples", "oranges" etc. There is an unknown number of additional tags. I want to create a Smart Folder containing file that have only the fruits tag, and nothing else. How do you do such an exclusive search?

I made a smart folder of all my .psd (Photoshop) files, so I can easily access them. However, my smart folder has .psd files from apps such as ZBrush that use .psd format in their program. It also brings up .psd files from my Creative Cloud. Is it possible to tell Smart Folders to exclude these folders?

I came across a weird issue in Mail. I have a smart folder for emails matching a number of specific senders. I assumed that smart folders work like smart folder in the Finder that emails are not actually moved there but simply link to the original location. The smart folder worked fine. Now I moved a message to the trash (from its original location in the Inbox, not from the Smart Folder). The message still shows in the Smart Folder, although now instead of "Inbox (Accountname)" it says "Trash" for the location of the message in the top right corner of the message. OK, fine, not quite intuitive, but understandable. However, now I empty the Trash. The message still remains in the Smart Folder. It still says "Trash" as location, yet the entire trash is empty (the IMAP trash folder as well as On My Mac trash folder). Now I click to "delete" it (from within the Smart Folder by right clicking and choosing "Delete" from the context menu) and it disappears (it doesn't show up in the Trash either, thankfully, that would have been even more bizarre). Anyways. Am I just not understanding how Smart Folders are work? Or is there something wrong. And after emptying the trash, where exactly is the actual (physical) location of my message (for purposes of troubleshooting)?