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Spotlight is a great tool to search for files on your Mac, as it lets you quickly find a file no matter where it is saved. When the tool shows results, they are categorized for you to quickly get to the exact file you were looking for. While the search results are almost always the ones you wanted, sometimes you will see some developer files appearing there, and it is mostly because of Xcode. These developer files may not be of much use to you unless they were the ones you were trying to find.
Related: how to install command line tools without Xcode on your Mac
If you wish to not see these developer results when you search using Spotlight, there is a way to omit these results.
Omitting the Developer Search Results from Spotlight When Xcode Is InstalledIf you have Xcode installed on your Mac, you can use the following steps to prevent its files from appearing in the Spotlight search.
On this panel what you need to do is uncheck the checkbox for “Developer.”
If you have uninstalled Xcode but the developer files still appear in the Spotlight search results, then you need to use the following steps to get rid of them.
Omitting the Developer Search Results from Spotlight When Xcode Is Not InstalledSince Xcode has been uninstalled from your Mac, you will not see the “Developer” checkbox which you saw in the above section. That means you cannot control the developer results that appear in Spotlight.
To tackle the issue what you need to do is create a dummy Xcode app file, and that will force the system panel to show the “Developer” checkbox which you can then uncheck.
1. Launch Terminal on your Mac.
2. When Terminal launches, type in the following command and press Enter. It will change your current working directory to “/Applications.”
3. Next, type the following command into Terminal and press Enter. It will create a new app file called Xcode which tricks your Mac into thinking that this is the real Xcode app.
4. You will not get a confirmation or anything in Terminal, but the job is done.
You should be able to see the “Developer” checkbox which was not shown before. Uncheck it and close the panel.
ConclusionIf you find developer files to be useless when you are looking for more important files using Spotlight, the guide above should help you stop those developer files from appearing in the search results.
Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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How To Extract Icons From The Apps On Your Mac
Extracting app icons on a Mac is useful in many ways. Maybe you are writing an eBook and you need the icons for the apps that you are going to mention in your book, or you just want to have the back of your laptop filled with different app icons. Whatever the reason is, getting the icons off apps is easier in Mac than any other platform. The built-in utilities on your Mac allows you to extract an icon from an app without much hassle. So if that is what you want to do, this guide should help you.
There are actually two ways to extract the icon of an app on your Mac. The first method takes help of the content manager to provide you with the icon, and the second one uses the Preview app that you must be familiar with if you have been using a Mac for quite some time. Here’s how you can use both of these ways.
Extracting an App Icon Using Content ManagerOpen the folder where the app you want to extract the icon is located. If you want to grab the icon of a system app that has come preloaded on your Mac, you can just head to the Applications folder where all of those applications are located.
You now have several folders on your screen. Open the folder that is labeled as “Resources,” as that is where the resources, including the icon, are located.
You are now in the folder where the icons you were looking for are located. Just look around for the app icon you want to extract; it will be in “.icns” format. Once you have found it, you can copy it and use it wherever you want.
If the default icon format doesn’t work for you, you can convert them to a more popular image format using the Preview app on your Mac.
Extracting an App Icon Using PreviewIf you would prefer using Preview to extract the icon, here’s how you can do that.
Open the folder where your app is located.
The extracted app icon is now available for you to use.
ConclusionOften, while writing guides or creating a roundup article, you will need those little app icons to make your work more enjoyable to the readers’ eyes. The above guide should help you do that on a Mac.
Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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Find Things Faster With These Spotlight Search Tips For Mac
When you need to find something on your Mac, you have the handy Spotlight search feature built right in. This convenient tool helps you locate documents, apps, and files as well as gives you suggestions if you so choose.
While Spotlight is super easy to use, you can do a lot more with it than you probably realize. You can narrow down your results quicker, get local information without much effort, and even do calculations.
For making the most of this cool tool, here are some Spotlight search tips for Mac.
How to access SpotlightAlternatively, you can keep your fingers on the keyboard and access it by pressing together the Command + Space bar.
Note: It will invoke Siri if you keep pressing Command + Space bar for a little longer.
Customize SpotlightYou don’t have to have Spotlight search every nook and cranny of your Mac when you use it. You can decide for yourself what and where to search and enable or disable search suggestions.
Using SpotlightAs mentioned, you can get local information, add words to limit your results, do conversions, and more. Here are those Spotlight search tips to keep in mind the next time you use it.
Try some of these searches:
Restaurants: Type in “pizza,” “burgers,” “tacos,” or another kind of food you’re in the mood to eat and see local eateries.
Showtimes: Type in the name of the movie followed by “showtimes” and you’ll see times for that film at your local theater.
Calculations: Type in the calculation and immediately see the result, such as “3560*450” or “3560-450”.
Conversions: Type in what you would like to convert, like “3 cups to tablespoons” or “450 feet to inches”.
File type and metadata: Type “kind:” before the kind of file you’re searching for like “kind:video” or “kind:pdf“. And you can include metadata to narrow down your results. Here are some examples:
kind:images created:1/1/19 – for images created on that data.
resume kind:document – for documents with the word “resume”.
kind:music by:”madonna” – for music by Madonna.
modified:<=1/1/19 – for items modified on or before a certain date.
Boolean operators: Use operators like “AND,” “OR,” “NOT,” and a minus sign (-) for “AND NOT”, to limit the search results. Here are some examples:
idb AND feedback – would search for items containing both words.
author:sandy OR author:sandi – would search for items containing either word.
kind:message date:1/1/19-2/1/19 NOT 2/14/19 – would search for messages between particular dates but eliminate those on a specific date.
vacation -chicago – would search for items with the word “vacation” but not “Chicago”.
For whatever you’re searching, you’ll see a list of apps, documents, and more on the left side as they apply. So, you could search for “emails from Sebastien last year” and see results in the Mail app on the left that you can pick from.
Using Spotlight to find things on your Mac or on the web is simply convenient. And with some tricks like these, you can make your search more accurate.
And if you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for, here’s how to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac.
Related Spotlight tips:
How To Lock The Notes On Your Mac
With Apple’s iOS 9.3 on your iPhone and OS X 10.11.4 on your Mac, you now have the ability to lock notes that are created in the Notes app on your devices. The feature allows you to password protect the notes that you do not want anyone to hage access to.
By setting up a password for your notes, you are protecting them from people spying on you. Once a note has been password-protected, it will ask you to enter the password each time you try to open it.
Here’s how you can go about locking notes on your Mac.
Locking Notes on a Mac3. You can also lock a note by pulling down the “File” menu in the app and selecting the “Lock This Note” option.
5. Your notes are now locked, and the next time you open a note, you will see the following screen asking you to enter the password before you can access the content of the note.
Unlocking the Notes in the Notes appIf you no longer wish your notes to remain locked, you can unlock them using the same Notes app.
1. Launch the Notes app from Launchpad on your Mac.
2. Open the Note that is currently locked that you wish to unlock. You will need to enter the password.
4. As soon as you select “Remove Lock” in the above step, the locked note will instantly be unlocked and will become available for access to anybody who can use your Mac.
Changing the Lock Password in the Notes appIf you would like to change the password that lets you access the locked notes, you can do so using the following steps.
1. Launch the Notes app on your Mac.
ConclusionIf you are concerned about the confidentiality of the notes on your Mac, the above guide should help you lock your notes with a password so that they are only accessible to you.
Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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Removing Macitnow From Your Mac
In this article, we ask what are the symptoms of a MacItNow “infection” and how can you remove this despicable and sneaky sales tool from your computer.
Foot in the DoorBut worse than having inserted itself into your system, it can also be a convenient pipe for other types of spyware into your machine. Besides, it is incredibly annoying.
Symptoms and CausesMacItNow commonly gets into your machine via “downloaders” or other “helpful” programs which seem to do nothing except assist you to download files. Of course, they are doing something else too.
Websites use adware like MacItNow to monetise their sites, so the bottom line is to be very careful what you agree to download. That said, adware happens even if your browsing is pure. A good policy is that when installing software (and you are unsure of how safe it is) to choose Custom or Advanced install options so you can check any additional bundles being sneaked in.
A well regarded remover is Bitdefender Adware Removal Tool for Mac. This is a good standard tool (and free!) which is easy to download and install and covers you for the basic threats.
Removing MacItNowSo the first thing to try is removing the threats automatically if you can without having to load and reconfigure every browser on your machine. Install Bitdefender Adware Remover and start it.
The software will now scan your browsers for errant extensions and delete them. It will announce when it’s finished.
Lastly Nuke it from Orbit (only way to be sure)If that first step was unsuccessful, then you have to go deeper. The final step is to remove MacItNow extensions from your browser manually.
On all browsers: Check for an application called “MacItNow” and delete it. Obviously they are starting to rename the app as it’s too easy to find, but look in your apps directory for any suspicious apps. Do a little research on Google to confirm you’ve found a bad guy before you wipe an app you actually need.
If you want to prevent any extensions being installed at all, move the Extensions On/Off slider to Off.
Disable and Delete any suspicious extensions.
Disable and Delete any suspicious extensions.
Once you’ve done that, make sure you check regularly for adware even before you get any alarming or annoying symptoms.
Phil South
Phil South has been writing about tech subjects for over 30 years. Starting out with Your Sinclair magazine in the 80s, and then MacUser and Computer Shopper. He’s designed user interfaces for groundbreaking music software, been the technical editor on film making and visual effects books for Elsevier, and helped create the MTE YouTube Channel. He lives and works in South Wales, UK.
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How To Turn On Stealth Mode In The Firewall On Your Mac
If your Mac is connected to the Internet or a network, there may be a number of attempts being made by others to see who is connected to the network. If you would like to remain invisible and would prefer that your Mac not be detected when a discovery attempt takes place, you can use an option located in the Firewall app on your Mac that makes it literally invisible on the network so any discovery attempts cannot find it.
The option that I am talking about is called Stealth Mode. It lets you make your Mac a little more secure by not letting it respond to any discovery attempts.
You do not need a third-party app as the feature is available right within the Firewall app. Here’s how you can use it.
Turning on Stealth Mode7. Stealth Mode should now be enabled.
From now on your Mac will not respond to any discovery attempts that take place on the Internet or on your network, and those people pushing the attempts wI’ll not be able to find your Mac provided the Stealth Mode remains enabled.
For network troubleshooting or any other reason, if you wish to turn off Stealth Mode, you can do so by going into the Firewall Options and unchecking the checkbox that you selected in the previous steps.
ConclusionKeeping your Mac safe is a top-most priority task, and if you are concerned about it, you can enable the above little feature that takes care of any attempts to find your Mac on the network you are connected to. All attempts to find your Mac will be in vain!
Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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