mdfind as a substitute for locate on Mac OS X

& (verbiage overflow) ⋅ ⋅ Mon 24 October 2011 ⋅ RSS ⋅ Search ⋅ Subscribe

[Note, 20130510: The posting below is correct, but I now maintain information in my Notes collection — see the current note or visit the search page for the Notes collection and search for "mdfind" or "updatedb", etc.]

Users of Linux are accustomed to the utilities updatedb followed by locate, used at the command-line prompt for finding currently installed files in readable directories on the system. On Mac OS X, not only does updatedb have to be run manually from /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb, but for some reason locate apparently doesn't always find filenames that exist and would be returned on a Linux installation.

Instead, Apple supplies mdfind, which searches the Spotlight metadata store. The man page describes a number of options, most usefully

It is also possible to restrict the search to specific fields (keys) of the metadata store.

The man page is online at https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/mdfind.1.html

[end]

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