OS X's Spotlight is a great tool for finding that file you lost or launching apps, but it can do a lot more than just find the occasional file. Here are some of the coolest Spotlight tips, features, and shortcuts to make your Mac a time-saving, file-searching powerhouse.

Make Advanced Search Queries

Spotlight's beauty lies in its simplicity. It's a single search bar that can find nearly anything on your machine with a few keystrokes. However, if you need to perform more advanced searches, you can do so without ticking a bunch of boxes and filling out advanced search forms. You just need to use a few operators—not unlike the operators you'd use on Google or Gmail. These include:

• Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT to to include or exclude terms. For example, invoice NOT paypal or invoice -paypal will find you all files that contain the word invoice and don't contain the word "paypal", which can be useful for filtering out certain items. You could even go more advanced with parentheses and quotes, like invoice AND credit NOT (paypal OR "google checkout").
• You can search for files of a specific type by using the kind operator, e.g. invoice kind:pdf.
• You can search for files from a specific date range using operators like created or modified, e.g. invoice modified:yesterday for something modified yesterday, or invoice created:1/1/2012-4/10/2012 to find something created in between January 1st and April 10th.

These are just a few examples of the advanced searches you can make. Experiment with common operators to see what else you can find.

Make Calculations and Look Up Words.

This one's pretty well-known, but it bears repeating. If you need a quick calculation done, there's no reason to open up the Calculator app. Just type your calculation into Spotlight. Whether it's something simple like 2+2 or something as complicated as sqrt(16)/2*(55.6+9). Just type it in and the answer will show up at the top of your results. You can even highlight it and press Cmd+C to copy the answer to your clipboard, for pasting in another program.

You can do this same thing with words. Just type a word into Spotlight and it'll show you the definition. You can click on the definition (or highlight it and press Enter) to view the full thing, or press Cmd+C to copy it for pasting into another app.

Copy or Move Files From the Search Menu

Need to copy a file to your desktop, Dropbox, or other location? No need to dig through your file system to find it. Just search for it in Spotlight, highlight it in the results list, and press Cmd+C. Then, you can paste that file wherever you want with Cmd+V in the Finder. It'll even work for contacts and email messages (it'll paste a .vcard or .emlx file).

Alternatively, you can drag that file out of the Spotlight results to copy it to a new location, or hold Command and drag it to move it to a new location. If you hold Command and Option while dragging, it'll create an Alias to that file if you want quick access to it from your desktop or another folder.

View a Search Result in The Finder

Half the time, when I'm looking for a file, it's because I don't actually know where it is, or its buried so far in the Finder that I don't want to click around the file system to get there. Searching for it in Spotlight will get you the file, but you can also use this keyboard shortcut to view that file's parent directory. Just highlight the file and press Cmd+Enter (or Cmd+Click on the file) to view it in the Finder. It's immensely handy for searches where you need to do more than just open the file.

Get a File's Info and File Path

If you want to see information about a file—like what kind of file it is, how big it is, where it resides, and more, you can just highlight it and press Cmd+I. This will bring up that file's Get Info window, just like it would if you were viewing it in the Finder. If you just want to know the path to that file, you don't need to open up the Get Info window; you can just highlight the file and press Cmd+Option.

Quick Look a File From the Search Results

If you want to get a slightly closer look at an image, document, or other quick look-compatible file, you can just highlight the file and press the Command key. Alternatively, you can just hover over it with your mouse. You'll get a little popup showing a bit of info about the file, as well as a preview. It isn't as large as the actual Quick Look window in the Finder is, but sometimes it'll do the trick. If you need a closer look, you can always press Cmd+Enter to show the file in the Finder, then hit Spacebar to bring up the regular Quick Look window.

Got any other cool Spotlight shortcuts or tips that we missed? Share them with us in the comments below, and enjoy all your extra seconds saved with Spotlights built-in time savers.

Mac OS X: Spolight is a great search tool, but on the surface, it only lets you open files you find in the search results. It turns out, a simple shortcut will show that result in the Finder.

If you are looking for a file but don't want to open it directly—say, if you want to rename it, move it, or perform some other action on the file itself—just search for it in Spotlight, highlight its entry in the results, and hit Command+Enter. Spotlight will open up a new Finder window containing the file's parent folder, so you can see the file itself.

You can also hit Option+Enter to open up all your Spotlight results in a new Finder window, which you can already do by hitting "Show All"—though it's always nice to have a keyboard shortcut. Got any of your own lesser-known Spotlight shortcuts? Be sure to share them with us in the comments.

Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks | Hacker News

When you discover the hidden powers and long reach of a tool you'd taken for granted, there's a kind of indescribable joy, a sense of conquest. Such is the case with J. Eddie Smith, who recently discovered just how powerful yet precise his Mac's Spotlight Search could be.

Image via Wikipedia.

Sure, anyone who digs around in Spotlight's settings, or read up on its search abilities online, might already know some of Smith's findings—about boolean operators ("coffee -java"), perhaps, or maybe hiding folders from Spotlight's view. But if you're a Mac owner who powered up and never looked back, this Practically Efficient post might give you pause for thought. Got your own quietly great Spotlight power to brag about? Let's hear it in the comments.

Spotlight is a great tool for finding documents, music, and other files on your Mac, but it won't search for certain kinds of files. If you need to locate a specific hidden, packaged, or system file, here's how to go about it.

Spotlight has some seriously awesome features—like being able to search the content of a document in addition to just the file name—but when it comes to the system files, such as those buried deep in the ~/Library folder, Spotlight leaves a bit to be desired out-of-the-box.

Tweaking Spotlight to Find System Files

Say you're troubleshooting an app, and you want to start over with a clean slate by deleting its .pref file. These files often have strange names that make them hard to find alphabetically in ~/Library/Preferences. Searching for the application's name would be a great solution, but Spotlight doesn't search system files by default. With a small tweak, though, you can choose to include system files in specific searches.

Just open up Finder and search for a file. When the search begins, a new bar shows up in the Finder with the options so search a specific folder and whether to search its filename or contents. On the right side of this bar is a plus sign. Hit that to bring up another menu with more options. In the dropdown that says Kind, choose Other. Use the search box to find "System Files" in the menu, and check its box. When you hit OK, "System Files" will be an option in that leftmost dropdown menu. Click it, and in the dropdown to the right of it, choose "Include". Spotlight will then extend your search to include system files and you can find the file in question.

Using Find Any File to Search Packaged and Hidden Files

Unfortunately, this method only works for finding system files. It won't find hidden files (even if you have Finder set to show hidden files), and it won't find files inside packages. For these, you'll need an external program. Free app Find Any File is a very simple search app that gives you these options in the form of simple checkboxes. Just search for your file, and when the results window pops up, check the box to include hidden files or files inside packages:

It isn't quite as fast as Spotlight, but it serves its purpose well when you need to get at files that Spotlight tries to keep out of your way.

These are just a few methods for finding files that Spotlight doesn't include in its searches by default, but its likely that there are other types of files that aren't Spotlight-friendly—if you have any tips for getting around Spotlight's limitations, share them with us in the comments.