How to Search Keywords on Mac in 2025

You remember the phrase, not the filename. Finder and Spotlight help a little, but they do not jump to the right page in a 300 page PDF or the right minute in a call recording. This guide shows the fastest ways to search keywords on Mac in 2025, then ends with a private, on device workflow that opens the exact moment you need.

The pain in real workflows

• Lawyers, you need “force majeure” across hundreds of legacy PDFs, plus the page with the signed clause.

• Researchers, you need “Figure 7” in scans and screenshots from an archive.

• Accountants, you need “wire transfer” across invoices and bank statement PDFs.

• Creators and teams, you need a quote in a video transcript and the exact timestamp to clip.

If search cannot jump to the right place, you waste minutes opening, scrolling, and guessing.

What your Mac already gives you

1) Finder quick search

• Press Command + Space, type the word, then press Return to open Finder results.

• Use the filter bar, choose Kind, then select document types.

• Open files and press Command + F inside each app to search within a single file.

Good for filenames and some document contents. Not great for precision across many files.

2) Spotlight tips

• Open with Command + Space and type the keyword.

• Add operators like kind:pdf or a folder name.

• You can open top results fast, but Spotlight does not take you to a page, slide, or timestamp.

Deep dive: see our Spotlight on Mac, the complete guide.

3) Preview and app level Find

Open a PDF, Word, PowerPoint, or Keynote file and press Command + F. This works per file only. It does not search across many documents at once.

4) Power user option, Terminal

mdfind "your phrase" kind:pdf can help, and grep -R "your phrase" /path works for plain text. Both require comfort with Terminal and still do not jump to the right page.

Why typical tools fail

• They match filenames and basic text, not text inside images, scans, or screenshots.

• They rarely traverse audio and video, so timestamps are out of reach.

• They do not open at the exact place, which is where your work happens.

• Web based tools may require uploads. Many teams cannot upload confidential files.

Solve it with Fenn, private and precise

Fenn is an AI powered file search engine for macOS that opens the exact moment inside your files, the specific PDF page, Keynote slide, text inside images, audio timestamp, or video frame. On device by default for privacy. Optional cloud indexing for speed and scale.

Step by step

1. Install Fenn on Apple Silicon. macOS Sonoma 14 or later is recommended.

2. Choose sources to index. Pick folders, external drives, and app libraries you rely on.

3. Index once, search forever. Fenn reads PDFs, Office docs, images and screenshots, audio, and video. It captures text inside images and context around every match.

4. Search from a shortcut. Press the Fenn hotkey, type your phrase, and choose Semantic, Keyword, or Hybrid mode.

5. Open at the moment. Hit Return to jump to page 12 of a PDF, slide 27 in Keynote, or 01:13:42 in a recording. No scrolling.

6. Stay private. All of this runs on your Mac. Turn on optional cloud indexing if you need faster updates across very large sources.

Example queries

• “force majeure” shows snippets per document with the page highlighted.

• “section 7.3 indemnity” finds close meaning, not only exact words, in Semantic or Hybrid mode.

• “Q3 revenue” in a meeting video opens at the timestamp where it is spoken.

Mini case

Before, a partner at a boutique law firm spent 25 minutes skimming five scanned contracts to verify a force majeure clause. After moving the Contracts and Scans folders into Fenn, the same check took under 40 seconds. One search surfaced all matches with page numbers, then a single Return opened the exact page inside Preview.

See also

• Searching many Office files? See our guide to search inside Office documents on Mac.

• Need text trapped in screenshots? Use Fenn’s image text indexing, then read our tutorial to find text in images and screenshots on Mac.

• Working from portable storage? Follow our guide to search external drives on Mac with Fenn.