How to change the default search scope in Finder

In this brief tutorial, we will show you how to adjust the search scope for Finder on your Mac. You can set it to search the entire drive (which is the default), search the current folder you are in, or use the search scope you last specified.

Sad Finder image on Mac with search icon

You may have noticed when opening a Finder window to search for a file that the default setting is to search through the entire Mac. Although this may be precisely what many people want to do, I personally tend to find myself clicking again to refine my search to the current folder.

You can customize the default scope for Finder window searches so that you no longer have to trawl through your full hard drive for a file that you know is in the folder you’ve already navigated to.

The only time I search via the bar in the top right of a Finder window is when I’m already within the necessary folder. I move to that folder and realize it has hundreds of similarly named files in it, and the fastest way to then narrow it down is to click in the top right and search. Therefore, I only ever want Finder’s search bar to look in my current folder.

If I’m searching my entire Mac for a file, I don’t bother to open a Finder window to begin with; I use Spotlight.

Library folder in Finder on Mac

As you can see from the above image, I’m in my /System/Library folder, and I want to search for the folder Assistant, which can be seen third from bottom in the list. But when I begin searching for it:

Finder search showing irrelevant results

Finder has returned a bunch of random files from my entire drive, completely losing the folder that was right in front of it. To get what I want, I can click across to the “Library” button in the top bar. But if we’re in it for the long haul, let’s just change the default behavior instead.

Change the default search scope for Finder on Mac

1) Open Finder and click Finder > Settings or Preferences from the top menu bar.

2) Go to the Advanced tab.

3) Under the drop-down menu entitled When performing a search: select your choice of search scope. There are three options:

  • Search This Mac
  • Search the Current Folder
  • Use the Previous Search Scope
Finder advanced settings

The default is Search This Mac, but I selected Search the Current Folder.

And that’s it!

You can revert or amend your change at any future point in time with the same preference window.

Interestingly, and for those with more of a command-line slant, these preferences can be set with Terminal. I was hoping that this would allow for setting the search scope to any custom folder, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems the search scopes are not set as file paths but as separate entities, meaning only the built-in options are available. Check out the image below to see what I mean:

Using Terminal to decide Finder search scope

The search scope strings are SCcf, SCev, and SCsp, corresponding to Current Folder, This Mac, and Previous Search, respectively. As these are not file paths, it does not work to set something like ~/Downloads here, hoping to make the search bar always search through your downloads by default.

Check out next: How to set your Mac’s Finder to show folder sizes