How to Search for Files in ComfortFiles

ComfortFiles has two levels of search: type in the toolbar search box to filter the current folder as you type, or click the magnifying glass to open the advanced search panel with real criteria — name, kind, date, size — that you can combine and save.

Quick filter

Type in the toolbar search box: the current folder’s listing narrows to matching items as you type. Clear it and the full listing is back. Best for “it’s in this folder somewhere”.

Advanced search

Click the magnifying glass icon to open the search panel:

• Add criteria rows: file name, kind, date, size — each with its own operators (contains, is, before/after, larger/smaller).
• Combine several criteria to narrow the result.
• Pick the scope — where the search should look.

Results appear in the file list and behave like normal files: open, Quick Look, cut and paste.

To see where a found file lives, right-click it — here or in Recents — and choose Open file location in new tab or Open file location in new window: its folder opens with the file selected, and the results stay in their own tab.

How far the search looks

A search starts scoped to the folder you’re in and covers just that folder, so its results match what the quick filter was showing a moment earlier. Click Subfolders to include everything nested inside it, or This Mac to search the whole machine.

That first choice is deliberate: a folder search that silently descended would return more than the quick filter did for the same word, which reads as the app contradicting itself.

Saved searches

A search you’ll run again can be saved and pinned to the sidebar — one click re-runs it with fresh results. Handy for things like “documents modified this week”.

Recents

Recents, in Quick Access in the sidebar, is a search that is always there: the files you created or downloaded in the last 7 days, newest first and grouped by day — Today, This week — from Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Movies, Music and iCloud Drive. Folders and apps are left out; it is about documents, as Finder’s is. To see further back, right-click Recents and choose Show items from › Last 14 days or Last 30 days.

Type in the search box while Recents is open to narrow it by name; clear the box, with the keyboard or its ×, and all of Recents is back.

When Recents or a search shows nothing

Recents and a search of This Mac come from Spotlight, the search built into macOS. If Spotlight stops finding the files in your home folder — it happens, and Finder’s Recents goes empty at the same moment — ComfortFiles says so instead of showing an empty list, with what to do. The steps are on When Spotlight isn’t finding your files. A search inside one folder by name, kind, date or size does not depend on Spotlight: it reads the folder itself.