Finder: Locating Multiple Files in a Folder?

By Sounds2Good, 21 July, 2023

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I want to locate all of the files containing a specific string in their file names. The files are in a very large music collection, so scrolling through folder contents, even when typing the first letters of a file name is cumbersome. I’m also having trouble using the finder find command (cmd-F) with VO. Using the VO find feature just locks up VO for more than 10 minutes. Because the drive containing the music collection has over 100,000 tracks/files, I’d like to do my searches within folders. Even the folders have several hundred or more tracks.

For example in a folder containing files with file names starting with the letter “G”, I want to find all of the files starting with the string:

Government Mule_

I want to locate all files that start with that string and no others. In this case, I know there are 110 files in this folder starting with this string. I’m hoping the find will show only these files in the list view of the Finder window, so I can manipulate them, such as copying just these files into a different folder.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you very much.

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Comments

By Tyler on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

When opening the folder and searching it using Command-F, what happens when setting the search criteria to name contains Government Mule?

By Sounds2Good on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

I am not having much luck using voice Over with the Finder find command. After I enter the text to search for, and select file name in the menu, I don’t know what to do to initiate the search. I also haven’t figured out how to limit the search to the current folder. If there’s guidance on using the Finder find command here on Applevis, I’d appreciate a pointer to the discussion.

Thanks.

By Sounds2Good on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

I spoke with Apple accessibility support and received some guidance. Voice Over doesn't seem to speak the status information indicating the number of files found. This is apparently displayed in the status bar of the Finder/Find window. I'll have to see if there is a VO command to read this status info without trying to navigate to the status bar. Also, I forgot to ask how to terminate the search. I closed the search window, but that isn't really satisfactory.

Thanks again for your help.

By Tyler on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

For me, when I perform a search in Finder and choose View > Show status bar (or press Command-Slash) the status bar is visible to VoiceOver and is located at the bottom of the window. Is this not the case for you?

By Sounds2Good on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

Thank you for the hint! The person at Apple accessibility support didn’t provide information about accessing the status bar from the View menu or using command-/. I’ll give this a try shortly.

How does one terminate the search function?

Thanks again.

By Tyler on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 16:35

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

I believe one terminates the search by either closing the window or deleting the search string from the field in the toolbar.