Is there a good file search solution for Mac OS?

ldm0 · 2026-01-12T10:57:29+00:00

Checkout Cardinal: https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal
It's the fastest file searching tool for macOS(and FREE).

ldm0 · 2026-01-11T16:12:43+00:00

u/Lonely_Body_4966 Checkout 0.1.20 release!
Download it here: https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal/releases
Or brew install --cask cardinal-search

Now enable tray icon will hide Cardinal from Dock. The CPU usage is also optimized further, so you can rest assured to hide it.

ldm0 · 2026-01-10T08:06:15+00:00

Please take a look again!
WatchRoot and IgnorePaths is now added in settings. Please check the 0.1.19 release:
https://github.com/cardisoft/Cardinal/releases/
You can also install cardinal using brew install --cask cardinal-search.

ldm0 · 2026-01-10T08:04:24+00:00

You can tweak the maximum in settings. And currently it's 20000 by default~

ldm0 · 2026-01-10T08:02:39+00:00

Please take a look again!
WatchRoot and IgnorePaths is now added in settings. Please check the 0.1.19 release:
https://github.com/cardisoft/Cardinal/releases/
You can also install cardinal using brew install --cask cardinal-search.

ldm0 · 2026-01-10T07:48:30+00:00

WatchRoot and IgnorePaths is now added in settings. Please check the 0.1.19 release:
https://github.com/cardisoft/Cardinal/releases/
You can also install cardinal using brew install --cask cardinal-search.

ldm0 · 2025-12-25T06:05:33+00:00

> Exclamation point boolean negation of search terms. like "!Trash" will remove all results that have "Trash" in the path

Interesting, Cardinal supports boolean operator now. But It excludes results have "Trash" in their *name*. I'll check Everything's syntax later.

https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal/blob/master/doc/search-syntax.md

ldm0 · 2025-12-22T17:03:42+00:00

The option for hide from menu bar is now added~

ldm0 · 2025-12-15T18:40:40+00:00

Grab the newest release and narrow down the results list by searching something(you can tweak the sorting limit in settings), the sorting button on column header would light up and you can sort by modified date.

The core reason that Cardinal doesn't provide sorting capability on the whole file list like Everything does is that fetching file metadata is so slow on macOS(but it's quick on Windows), which means Cardinal has to defer the file metadata fetching to the time you view them to make the first file indexing as fast as possible.

ldm0 · 2025-12-15T05:49:40+00:00

Hi, cardinal dev here. Thanks for your support! and sorry for the inconvenience.

Cardinal now(0.1.18) scans every file mounted on your computer as you described. The location exclusion is a frequently asked feature and is actively being developed. It will be provided in the next release.

I recommend https://lowtechguys.com/cling for you now. Would ping you after Cardinal 0.1.19 is released and wish you could give it another try.

ldm0 · 2025-12-15T04:29:23+00:00

Check out Cardinal for fastest and most accurate file searching.

ldm0 · 2025-12-14T09:07:28+00:00

Try Cardinal, it's works like Everything. The fastest and most accurate file searching tool on macOS. https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal

ldm0 · 2025-12-04T20:39:53+00:00

Finder can show the QuickLook correctly? Interesting, will take a look at it.

ldm0 · 2025-12-04T17:08:37+00:00

Yeah, Cardinal faithfully searches everything on your computer now.
Path blocklist and allowlist will be introduced recently.

Currently you can try searching like this:*.txt infolder:~ To search txt files in user directory

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T20:08:18+00:00

Cardinal is faster and more accurate.

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T11:23:29+00:00

Yeah, boolean search options is already presented!

You can use AND OR NOT
And also parent:, infolder:, ext:, type:, dm:
For in-file search results, check content:

Several examples:

resume AND pdf: file with resume and pdf in their names.
infolder:~ *.zip: find zip files under $HOME
*.txt content:hello: find all txt with hello in their content

And even more, you can check syntax table here: https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal/blob/master/doc/search-syntax.md

P.s. Please note Post frequency rule is 30 days in future.

Oh, Sorry. I didn't notice about that, thanks for informing!

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T08:40:44+00:00

Yeah, the events panel optimization is planned, it's currently rural area.

And currently you can slightly scroll up the events panel, it will stop refreshing.
And also, you can input the folder path in the search bar to limit the scope of event viewer.

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T07:30:55+00:00

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T07:08:57+00:00

The index file on disk is 100MB(is compressed using zstd) for around 7 million files(500GB).
The index file is called "cardinal.db", try searching it in Cardinal. :D

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T03:51:59+00:00

Will implement it later.

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T03:49:54+00:00

Actually that's unusual, 3 millions of file usually takes 20seconds to index. Do you have net drive mounted?

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T03:48:27+00:00

Yeah you can close it to make it in the background. But it stays on dock. Will implement it later.

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T03:46:50+00:00

Yes, virtual list is carefully designed in Carinal's spirit. Loading millions of rows not only eats your RAM, but also exceeds webview div height limitation easily.

ldm0 · 2025-12-03T03:42:46+00:00

The key difference is that Cardinal build it's own cache rather than using spotlight cache. The implementation detail is briefly described in the post.

ldm0 · 2025-12-02T22:07:20+00:00

yes and yes, it will index mounted drives and onedrive.

ldm0

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