The find command has a number of options you can use to narrow down search results, and these can be looked up on its manual page, but the basics for finding a file are to specify the starting path and the name, such as the example here to locate a file called 'test.txt' starting in the Users directory: The find command will try to enter any folder in the specified path, which can result in 'Permission denied' errors, but for files that your account has default access, this command should reveal them properly.

The first option in the Terminal is the classic 'find' command that is common to many Unix systems, which will recursively walk a specified folder hierarchy and search items for a given name pattern.

Of course besides Apple's GUI options there are some third-party searching tools available however, without these the other option in OS X is to use the Terminal, which can benefit both Terminal and GUI-based routines. However, there are other options for accessing this index and otherwise finding files you might be interested in locating. There several ways to find files in OS X, the most popular of which are GUI-based routines such as the Spotlight menu and the Finder search, both of which offer quick access to the system's metadata search index.

How to find files by date on mac