mdfind(1) BSD General Commands Manual mdfind(1)NAMEmdfind — finds files matching a given query
SYNOPSISmdfind [-live] [-count] [-onlyin directory] [-name fileName] query
DESCRIPTION
The mdfind command consults the central metadata store and returns a list
of files that match the given metadata query. The query can be a string
or a query expression.
The following options are available:
-0 Prints an ASCII NUL character after each result path. This
is useful when used in conjunction with xargs -0.
-live Causes the mdfind command to provide live-updates to the num‐
ber of files matching the query. When an update causes the
query results to change the number of matches is updated.
The find can be cancelled by typing ctrl-C.
-count Causes the mdfind command to output the total number of
matches, instead of the path to the matching items.
-onlyin dir
Limit the scope of the search to the directory specified.
-name fileName
Searches for matching file names only.
-literal Force the provided query string to be taken as a literal
query string, without interpretation.
-interpret Force the provided query string to be interpreted as if the
user had typed the string into the Spotlight menu. For exam‐
ple, the string "search" would produce the following query
string:
(* = search* cdw || kMDItemTextContent = search* cdw)
EXAMPLES
The following examples are shown as given to the shell.
This returns all files with any metadata attribute value matching the
string "image":
mdfind image
This returns all files that contain "MyFavoriteAuthor" in the kMDItemAu‐
thor metadata attribute:
mdfind "kMDItemAuthor == '*MyFavoriteAuthor*'"
This returns all files with any metadata attribute value matching the
string "skateboard". The find continues to run after gathering the ini‐
tial results, providing a count of the number of files that match the
query.
mdfind-live skateboard
To get a list of the available attributes for use in constructing
queries, see mdimport(1), particularly the -X switch.
SEE ALSOmdimport(1), mdls(1), mdutil(1), xargs(1)Mac OS X June 10, 2004 Mac OS X
