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hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

80 points

Finder versus Spotlight - and eliminating FINDER confusions

i have been reading up on FINDER because i use it like a pencil pushing marbles around or something. i just simply do NOT get what is going on with this tool.

what is the difference between a FINDER search and a Spotlight search Please? when i go to the little search icon in the top right of my screen - does this imply i am doing a spotlight search? is this /different/ than putting a term in a FINDER window?!

also. does this sequence in the images look correct?

search term in "Magnifying Glass UI"
list of terms by category (were these organizable in the sense i can reorder it to show PDF or txt or TEXT or whatever first? i really really really do not care about stuff on the internet here or internet searches here. i want to just search my hard drive.
SCROLL DOWN to /doubleclick/ on the FINDER item. is there a way to just get this search tool to pull up in FINDER? or should i not be using the magnifying glass if i want to just search my hard drive in finder?!
i see this is sortable by category and that i can also restrict the search to a FOLDER. how does it select what folder to show here? is there a DEFAULT SETTING for whether it is searching the HD or a folder or whatever? can you SAVE folders here for searching? i guess with finder search saves? do these need an actual search term?

follow up questions

A. if i SAVE a search it puts it in a saved search folder somewhere in the OS. and then knocks me out of the UI. so i guess i go back into Spotlight and open it again if i want to add a restrictor or do another search after saving a search?

B. what is the difference between MyHardDrive > Library>Spotlight and MyHardDrive>System>Library>Spotlight again??

C. and saved searches goes in MyHardDrive > Users > MyHomeFolder > Library [which is GHOSTED?] > Saved Searches?! is there a good way to create an ALIAS for this GHOSTED library so i can find it easy? or how do i find this ghosted folder again? just run a SPOTLIGHT search?