mdfind(1) General Commands Manual mdfind(1)

mdfind — finds files matching a given query

mdfind [-live] [-count] [-onlyin directory] [-name fileName] query

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:

Prints an ASCII NUL character after each result path. This is useful when used in conjunction with xargs -0.
Causes the mdfind command to provide live-updates to the number 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.
Causes the mdfind command to output the total number of matches, instead of the path to the matching items.
dir
Limit the scope of the search to the directory specified.
fileName
Searches for matching file names only.
Force the provided query string to be taken as a literal query string, without interpretation.
Force the provided query string to be interpreted as if the user had typed the string into the Spotlight menu. For example, the string "search" would produce the following query string:
(* = search* cdw || kMDItemTextContent = search* cdw)

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 kMDItemAuthor metadata attribute:

mdfind "kMDItemAuthors == '*MyFavoriteAuthor*'"

This returns all files with any metadata attribute value matching the string "skateboard". The find continues to run after gathering the initial 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.

mdimport(1), mdls(1), mdutil(1), xargs(1)

June 10, 2004 Mac OS X