Spotlight Suggestions

Find things faster with these Spotlight search tips for Mac

Sandy Writtenhouse / August 13, 2019

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 quickly track a flight from anywhere on your iPhone

Sandy Writtenhouse / December 24, 2018

Whether you’re preparing to jump on a plane or just waiting for a friend to fly in, you may think that you have to download a special app to track those flights. And, while a specific flight tracking app is certainly a great way to go, especially if you’re a frequent traveler, there is another way.

Here’s how to quickly track flights from anywhere with your iPhone and all you need is the flight number.

iOS 10 tidbit: Spotlight Suggestions in Messages

Christian Zibreg / July 12, 2016

On iOS 10, Spotlight Suggestions appear in more places than before. We recently told you about Spotlight Suggestions in the Look Up interface (formerly known as the Define feature). We also discussed iOS 10's expressive Messages app in depth and mentioned its super useful inline previews of URLs.

As it turns out, not only does Messages support inline previews of media URLs, but underlines specific terms in your chats—such as movie and app names—that Spotlight Suggestions can give you more info about.

Why I think Spotlight and Siri should be one

Sébastien Page / June 7, 2016

Ever since the rumors of Siri making its way to the Mac began gaining credence, I started thinking about how I would like to use the feature on OS X, and what it would mean for Siri on iOS. As I was toying around with the idea of Siri on my Mac, something became apparent very quickly: Siri and Spotlight Search have a lot in common. So much so that maybe it would make sense to merge then into one feature at some point. Let me explain.

Spotlight Suggestions expand to seven new countries, including India and Hong Kong

Christian Zibreg / May 24, 2016

Spotlight Suggestions, a feature that recommends content from the Internet when searching with Spotlight on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 9.0+ or a Mac running OS X 10.11 El Capitan or later, has expanded to seven additional markets: Hong Kong, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and United Arab Emirates.

Counting these regions, Spotlight Suggestions are now available in a total of 26 major markets around the world, listed on Apple's iOS Feature Availability webpage.