by Steve Sorbo | Dec 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
Spotlight has been a staple on macOS for decades, and at various points in its history, Apple has added new search capabilities. However, the revamp that Spotlight enjoyed in macOS 26 Tahoe is the most significant change in a long time. Here are the new features you’ll experience in Tahoe.
Filterable Interface
Apple has refocused the Spotlight interface to list all result types in a single view, rather than separating them by type as before. Apple claims the results are intelligently ranked, so in theory, what you’re most likely to want will appear at the top. As before, you invoke Spotlight with Command-Space, but when you start typing, it tries to auto-complete using the top hit. In the screenshot below, the user typed “Apple” and Spotlight added “Configurator” in white. Keep typing to change the autocomplete, double-click a result to open it, or use the arrow keys to select a result and press Return to open it or Tab to search inside it.
Having all the results in a single window may still be overwhelming, so Spotlight now lets you filter the results in several ways. Most notable is the horizontally scrollable line of buttons above the search results that lets you filter the results list to particular files or data types, results from specific apps, files stored in a third-party file provider like Google Drive, and even menu items. For example, clicking the Calendar button above the results shows only matching events.
Spotlight also features new dedicated browsing modes, so if you press Command-1 through Command-4 (or wiggle the pointer after invoking Spotlight to reveal browsing mode buttons), Spotlight limits the results to specific types of items:
- Applications: Press Command-1 to display all your apps in a Launchpad-like view; type a few letters to filter the results to matching apps. The button row at the top lets you filter further by App Store category.
- Files: Press Command-2 for a file browser. Although Spotlight provides suggestions and recent files, you’ll probably want to type words from the filename. The button row lets you limit the results to specific file types or documents from specific apps.
- Actions: Press Command-3 to see a long list of actions you can now perform from Spotlight. Many of these are from Apple’s apps, but third-party apps can also expose actions via Spotlight. More on this new feature shortly.
- Clipboard: Press Command-4 to see what you have copied to the clipboard recently and insert selected items with a click. More on clipboard history later, too.
Spotlight provides three additional ways to filter the results:
- By location: To search within top-level macOS containers and third-party cloud containers, you can type the location name and press Tab before typing a search string. Filtering by location works for the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Applications folders, as well as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. (You may need to select the folder from the search results manually before pressing Tab the first few times; this trains Spotlight.) Unfortunately, searching by location doesn’t work for arbitrary folders; use a Finder search instead.
- By app: To filter the results to include only documents that a specific app can open, type its name and press Tab. Enter a search string to search within the filtered results.
- By kind: You can filter kinds of files by typing
/ and then the file type, like /PDF or /text, and then pressing Return. For even more kind searches, prefix your search with kind:filetype, like kind:csv or kind:presentation.
Trigger Actions (with Quick Keys)
Perhaps the most significant new feature of Spotlight is the ability to trigger actions across a wide variety of apps using the keyboard. For example, you can invoke Spotlight and type an action name, like start timer and press Return to initiate a timer in the Clock app. Spotlight then prompts you for the number of minutes.
For actions you perform regularly, you can speed things up by defining Quick Keys, which are character sequence shortcuts that stand in for the full action name. For example, you could set it up so that typing st in Spotlight expands to start timer.
Many Apple apps expose their features as Spotlight actions, and an ever-increasing number of third-party apps do as well. The only way to see which actions are available is to open Spotlight, press Command-3, and scroll through the list.
It’s worth calling out the fact that Apple’s Shortcuts app makes all its shortcuts available as Spotlight actions, so you can now use Spotlight to trigger additional automations.
Clipboard History
The other huge addition to Spotlight is clipboard history, which until now has required using a third-party utility. Clipboard history lets you access everything you have copied to the clipboard over a period of time, making it easy to paste text and graphics more than once. You turn on clipboard history and set Spotlight to remember clipboard items from the last 30 minutes, 8 hours, or 7 days in System Settings > Spotlight.
To access your clipboard history, invoke Spotlight, press Command-4, and either double-click an entry in the list or press the Down arrow key to select the desired clipboard item and press Return to paste it into the current text field. You can also type a few characters from the clipboard item to filter the list, but unfortunately, that works only with characters at the beginning of the item, not elsewhere.
Website Searches
Spotlight Web searches are quicker than switching to your Web browser, navigating to the site, finding the search field, and entering your search. Just open Spotlight, type the website name, press Tab, and then type a search string to search directly on that site. Sites that work well include Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, IMDb, and eBay, but it’s worth trying any website you have already searched in Safari.
Spotlight learns its site‑specific searches from Safari; if you primarily use another browser, perform a few searches in Safari first to seed Spotlight’s knowledge.
Spotlight History
Finally, if you use the same Spotlight commands repeatedly, you might be able to avoid some unnecessary typing by invoking Spotlight and then pressing the Up arrow repeatedly to cycle back through your previous Spotlight commands. Once the one you want appears, press Return to insert it just as though you had typed it. Having access to your Spotlight history isn’t a game-changer, but it’s worth remembering for occasional use.
Going Beyond Spotlight
Spotlight in Tahoe takes a big step toward launchers like LaunchBar, Alfred, and Raycast, but those tools still lead in customization and extensibility. For many users, Spotlight now covers the basics—launching apps, opening files, triggering actions, and recalling clipboard items. If you need more—file operations beyond opening, deep in‑app data access, universal Web search, window management, or bespoke extensions—LaunchBar, Alfred, and Raycast remain the better choice.
(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Wirestock)
Social Media: Spotlight in macOS 26 Tahoe received a major upgrade, and you can now filter results, run app actions, search sites directly, and browse clipboard history—all starting from a quick press of Command‑Space.
by Steve Sorbo | Dec 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
One of the big wins of using a password manager is that you don’t need to remember or enter most passwords—the app does that for you. Even those passwords that must be entered manually can be looked up if you forget them.
However, people who don’t use password managers regularly forget passwords and have to reset them—some surveys suggest that roughly half of all users admit to forgetting at least one password each month. While most account passwords can be easily reset by email, the Apple Account is a notable exception. Because it contains so much sensitive information, Apple protects it against relatively easy email hacks, which means recovering a forgotten Apple Account password requires different methods. So what should you—or someone you know—do if they forget their Apple Account password? And, what can you do in advance to make recovery painless?
Apple Account Recovery Methods
Apple offers five ways to regain access to an Apple Account if the password is forgotten and needs to be reset:
- Two-factor authentication: When you try to change your Apple Account password, Apple first sends an approval request to any trusted device that you can unlock with a passcode or password. By using this second, trusted factor, Apple can be sure that you’re the person requesting the password reset.
- Trusted phone number: If no trusted device is available because it has been lost, broken, or stolen, Apple falls back on sending a six-digit code via SMS text message or a voice call to a trusted phone number. While not quite as secure as a trusted device, this is still a good way to reset a password.
- Recovery contact: If neither a trusted device nor a trusted phone number is available, as might be the case for someone who has only an iPhone and has lost access to it, users can turn to a recovery contact—a person who can help in an emergency. The recovery contact simply looks up the one-time code and shares it.
- Recovery key: If the user has enabled a recovery key—a 28-character code—they can enter that to reset the password instead of using Apple’s Account Recovery (next). Using a recovery key is fast and easy, but you must first set it up and store it in a location accessible during a password reset. Only tech-savvy people who want more control over the account recovery process should set up a recovery key.
- Account Recovery: As long as the user hasn’t set up a recovery key, Apple offers an Account Recovery service when no trusted devices are available, no trusted phone numbers can receive verification codes, and no recovery contact is set or reachable. Account Recovery takes hours or days and relies on automated checks to confirm that the person resetting the password is doing so legitimately.
Setting Up Recovery Methods
Let’s run through how to set up each of these so you can enable the appropriate ones for your account and help your Apple-using family and friends do the same. Setting up all of these methods takes place in Settings > Your Name > Sign-In & Security (iPhone or iPad) or System Settings > Your Name > Sign-In & Security (Mac).
- Set up two-factor authentication: Nearly everyone already has two-factor authentication enabled. To confirm that, look at the Sign-In & Security screen. If two-factor authentication is off, turn it on; if it’s active, tap or click Two-Factor Authentication to view your trusted devices.
- Specify trusted phone numbers: You can set one or more trusted phone numbers in the same Two-Factor Authentication screen that lists your trusted devices for two-factor authentication. Scroll to the bottom and tap or click Add a Trusted Phone Number, as shown above.
- Add recovery contacts: Adding a recovery contact is similarly easy. On the Sign-In & Security screen, tap or click Recovery Contacts, then tap or click Add Recovery Contact. Apple suggests family members and frequent correspondents, but you can specify someone else as well. People in your Family Sharing group are added automatically; other people have to accept your request. There’s no harm in having multiple recovery contacts. If someone adds you as a recovery contact, you’ll see that at the bottom of the Recovery Contacts list. To help someone recover their account, tap their name on the Recovery Contacts screen, then follow the prompts to provide them with a recovery code.
- Create a recovery key: To set up a recovery key on the Sign-In & Security screen, tap or click Recovery Key, then follow the onscreen instructions. When you’re done, print or write down your recovery key and store it in a secure place. To complete the setup, you’ll need to confirm the key. Once you’ve set up a recovery key, resetting the password requires entering the key and a verification code sent to a trusted phone number. Also note that if you turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, you must have a recovery key or recovery contact because Apple won’t be able to help you recover your account.
- Invoke Account Recovery: You don’t need to do anything to set up Account Recovery—it’s merely the last-ditch option in case everything else fails.
Although that might seem like a lot, it should take only a few minutes to make sure two-factor authentication is turned on, specify a trusted phone number or two, and add one or more people as recovery contacts. Most people shouldn’t set up a recovery key because it prevents them from using Apple’s account recovery process.
Reset the Apple Account Password
You can start the process of resetting your Apple Account password in three places:
- On a trusted device: If you have a trusted device—one that you unlock with a passcode or password—using it to reset the password with two-factor authentication is by far the most straightforward approach.
- In the Apple Support app on a borrowed device: If you don’t have a trusted device but do have access to a trusted phone number or recovery contact, you can initiate the process from someone else’s device using the Apple Support app. Scroll down to Support Tools, tap Reset Password, tap Help Someone Else, enter your Apple Account email address or phone number, and follow the onscreen instructions.
- On the Web: If no other Apple device is available, you can start the password reset process using any Web browser at iforgot.apple.com.
If you need to fall back on Account Recovery, Apple says to avoid using any devices currently signed in with the Apple Account whose password you’re trying to reset, as activity on the Apple Account will automatically cancel the account recovery process. Remember, it can take days, though you can see how much longer you have to wait at iforgot.apple.com.
Finally, let us reiterate that storing the Apple Account password in a password manager—such as the free Passwords app Apple bundles with the current versions of its operating systems—means you can always look it up if you need it.
(Featured image by iStock.com/Francisco Javier Ortiz Marzo)
Social Media: Don’t let anyone you know get locked out of their Apple Account if they forget the password. Learn how to set up different recovery methods—then help your family and friends protect their accounts too.
by Steve Sorbo | Dec 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
Do you repeatedly find yourself wanting to do something in the Finder with every file of a certain type? Perhaps you regularly download files from a particular website that come in with a .txt extension, even though they’re CSV files that should have a .csv extension? Or maybe you want to rename files according to their creation date whenever they’re moved into a specific folder? Or copy every file whose name matches a specific string to a remote file server?
Your desires will undoubtedly differ from everyone else’s, but the key to automating file-related actions in the Finder is a longstanding macOS technology called folder action scripts. In essence, you attach a custom AppleScript to a folder, and whenever the folder’s contents change, the script runs. Anything you can do with AppleScript, you can automate with a folder action script.
Don’t panic at the sight of the word “AppleScript.” Although creating a folder action script requires creating an AppleScript, we don’t expect you to write an AppleScript or even know much about it. You can get an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to write the actual code—all you need to do is explain what you want to the chatbot, copy and paste code into Script Editor, and link the script to the desired folder.
Two warnings: always start with test files in a test folder before letting a script work on real files in a real folder, and be doubly cautious about scripts that move files to the Trash.
Let’s get started! We’ll use the CSV renaming script as an example.
Step 1: Create a Script with AI Help
When working with an AI chatbot to write an AppleScript, it’s helpful to be as specific as possible. Here’s the prompt we started with:
Write an AppleScript that I can use to make a folder action script for my Downloads folder. I want it to detect a newly downloaded file that has a .txt extension and present me with a dialog with two buttons asking if I would like to change the filename extension to .csv (the default) or leave it as .txt.
Paste that into the chatbot of your choice, and it will return a script. Copy it to the clipboard—chatbots usually include a button to copy just the text of the script, so you don’t have to select it manually.
Step 2: Save Your Script
Now you need to turn that script into something functional. Follow these steps:
- Open Script Editor, which you’ll find in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.
- Choose File > New to create a new script.
- Paste the text of the script from the chatbot into the script.
- Click the hammer icon in Script Editor’s toolbar to check for syntax errors. If there are none, the text turns from all purple to various colors, as shown below. (We’ll assume the script is correct for now; more on how to fix errors in Step 4 below.)
- Choose File > Save, and in the Save dialog, navigate to
~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/ (that’s the Library folder in your user folder). If the Folder Action Scripts folder doesn’t exist within Scripts, press Command-Shift-N (while still in the Save dialog) to create a new folder. Be sure to name it exactly Folder Action Scripts.
- Still in the Save dialog, choose Script from the File Format pop-up menu and click Save to save the file.
Step 3: Connect Your Script to a Folder
To open the Folder Actions Setup app, you may be able to Control-click the desired folder (such as a Test folder on your desktop) and choose Folder Actions Setup from the pop-up menu; it might also be in a Services submenu. But the easiest way to open it is with Spotlight. Press Command-Space, type Folder Actions Setup (or enough of the name for Spotlight to find it), and press Return. Once you have the app open:
- Select the Enable Folder Actions checkbox at the top.
- Click the + button under Folders with Actions, and open the Test folder in the file dialog.
- Click the + button under Script, then select the script you just saved—the list is sorted alphabetically, so you may need to scroll.
A folder can have multiple folder action scripts linked to it, though be aware that they can interact with one another in unexpected ways. You can disable a script by deselecting its checkbox or remove it entirely by selecting it and clicking the – button. To make changes to a script, select it and click Edit Script to open it in Script Editor.
Step 4: Test Your Script
This is the moment of truth—did the chatbot get it right? Create a text file in TextEdit and save it on the desktop with a .txt extension. Then drag it into the Test folder and see if you’re prompted to rename it to .csv. If so, you’re done!
But what if it doesn’t work? What to do depends on how it failed:
- Script Editor complains about syntax errors: Report the error to the chatbot by taking a screenshot like the one below and pasting or dragging it into the chatbot text entry field. It will analyze the screenshot to identify the error and try to provide you with revamped code that fixes the problem.
- Nothing happens: First, verify that the folder action is enabled in Folder Actions Setup and that the correct folder is listed. Then return to the chatbot and say exactly that. “I dropped a .txt file in my Test folder, but nothing happened.” It will analyze the code it previously wrote and attempt to address whatever is causing it to fail.
- You get a permissions request: The first time a folder action script runs, macOS may ask for permission to control the Finder or access certain folders. Click Allow when prompted.
- You get some other error: Just as with code errors in Script Editor, your best bet is to take a screenshot of the error and paste it into your chat. Be sure to add any additional information that might shed light on the reason for the error.
- The wrong thing happens: If something else happens, but it’s not what you want—like more files being acted on than you intended—go back to the chatbot and describe precisely what happened and how that was wrong, reiterating the results you want to achieve.
It’s not uncommon to go back and forth with the chatbot several times to end up with an AppleScript that works as you want. If you still have trouble, ask the chatbot to add debugging alerts that show you where the process breaks down.
Other Useful Folder Action Ideas
Once you’ve mastered the basics, consider these automation possibilities:
- Automatically resize images added to a folder to specific dimensions
- Sort downloaded files into subfolders based on file type
- Add a timestamp or custom prefix to every file added to a project folder
- Play a sound or send a notification when files matching certain criteria appear
- Back up critical files by copying them to a second location whenever they’re added to a watched folder
There’s undoubtedly a DIY aspect to all this, but folder action scripts are both a practical use of AI chatbots and a relatively easy way to automate file-based workflows that are tedious or time-wasting when done by hand. If you’re attracted to the idea but uninterested in fussing with chatbots, Script Editor, and Folder Actions Setup, look into Noodlesoft’s Hazel, a $42 utility that provides an easy-to-use interface for automatically organizing files on your Mac.
(Featured image by iStock.com/Poca Wander Stock)
Social Media: Automate Mac file chores like moving, renaming, or tagging files with folder action scripts that run whenever files change. You can even get an AI chatbot to write the script for you.
Recent Comments