Spotlight Search

Behavior Notes

What This Tool Does

spotlight_search uses macOS Spotlight (mdfind) to search the system's pre-built file index. Searches are extremely fast (milliseconds) because they query an existing index rather than scanning files.

Recently Used Files

Use recently_used=True to find files the user actually opened/worked on. This uses macOS's kMDItemLastUsedDate tracking, which records when files were opened by any application.

• "what did I work on today" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, exclude_apps=True, days=1)
• "files I opened this week" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, exclude_apps=True, days=7)
• "recent PDFs" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, content_type="pdf", days=7)

Always use exclude_apps=True with recently_used unless the user specifically asks about applications. Without it, results are cluttered with system apps.

Important: Does NOT Search Mail.app

Mail.app uses Core Spotlight, a separate private index that is NOT accessible via mdfind. To search emails in Mail.app, always use search_emails (AppleScript-based). This tool can find .eml files stored on disk (e.g., in OneDrive, Downloads), but not messages in Mail.app mailboxes.

File and Document Search

Search by:

• file_name — file name pattern (partial match, case-insensitive)
• query — full-text content search across file contents
• body — alias for content text search
• content_type — filter by file type
• days — limit to recently modified files (or recently opened when recently_used=True)
• directory — restrict search to a specific directory

Content Types

Type	What it matches
pdf	PDF documents
image	All image formats (PNG, JPG, HEIC, etc.)
document	Text documents, Word, Pages, etc.
presentation	Keynote, PowerPoint
spreadsheet	Numbers, Excel
email	.eml files on disk (NOT Mail.app inbox)

Common Patterns

• "what did I work on" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, exclude_apps=True, days=1)
• "files I opened this week" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, exclude_apps=True, days=7)
• "find PDF named X" -> spotlight_search(file_name="X", content_type="pdf")
• "documents modified today" -> spotlight_search(content_type="document", days=1)
• "search files for X in Downloads" -> spotlight_search(query="X", directory="~/Downloads")
• "search all spreadsheets for budget" -> spotlight_search(query="budget", content_type="spreadsheet")
• "find recent presentations" -> spotlight_search(recently_used=True, content_type="presentation", days=14)

Output Format

For files: Shows Name, Path, Type, Size, Modified date, and Last opened date (when available).