(Featured image by iStock.com/Pakpoom Makpan)

Social Media: We recommend updating to macOS 26.6 Tahoe, iOS 26.6, and iPadOS 26.6, not just for the many security fixes, but also because they promise to optimize Spotlight performance for the forthcoming version 27 upgrades.

Filterable Interface

Apple has refocused the Spotlight interface to list all result types in a single view, rather than separating them by type as before. Apple claims the results are intelligently ranked, so in theory, what you’re most likely to want will appear at the top. As before, you invoke Spotlight with Command-Space, but when you start typing, it tries to auto-complete using the top hit. In the screenshot below, the user typed “Apple” and Spotlight added “Configurator” in white. Keep typing to change the autocomplete, double-click a result to open it, or use the arrow keys to select a result and press Return to open it or Tab to search inside it.

Having all the results in a single window may still be overwhelming, so Spotlight now lets you filter the results in several ways. Most notable is the horizontally scrollable line of buttons above the search results that lets you filter the results list to particular files or data types, results from specific apps, files stored in a third-party file provider like Google Drive, and even menu items. For example, clicking the Calendar button above the results shows only matching events.

Spotlight also features new dedicated browsing modes, so if you press Command-1 through Command-4 (or wiggle the pointer after invoking Spotlight to reveal browsing mode buttons), Spotlight limits the results to specific types of items:

• Applications: Press Command-1 to display all your apps in a Launchpad-like view; type a few letters to filter the results to matching apps. The button row at the top lets you filter further by App Store category.
  
• Files: Press Command-2 for a file browser. Although Spotlight provides suggestions and recent files, you’ll probably want to type words from the filename. The button row lets you limit the results to specific file types or documents from specific apps.
  
• Actions: Press Command-3 to see a long list of actions you can now perform from Spotlight. Many of these are from Apple’s apps, but third-party apps can also expose actions via Spotlight. More on this new feature shortly.
  
• Clipboard: Press Command-4 to see what you have copied to the clipboard recently and insert selected items with a click. More on clipboard history later, too.
  

Spotlight provides three additional ways to filter the results:

• By location: To search within top-level macOS containers and third-party cloud containers, you can type the location name and press Tab before typing a search string. Filtering by location works for the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Applications folders, as well as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. (You may need to select the folder from the search results manually before pressing Tab the first few times; this trains Spotlight.) Unfortunately, searching by location doesn’t work for arbitrary folders; use a Finder search instead.
• By app: To filter the results to include only documents that a specific app can open, type its name and press Tab. Enter a search string to search within the filtered results.
• By kind: You can filter kinds of files by typing / and then the file type, like /PDF or /text, and then pressing Return. For even more kind searches, prefix your search with kind:filetype, like kind:csv or kind:presentation.

Trigger Actions (with Quick Keys)

Perhaps the most significant new feature of Spotlight is the ability to trigger actions across a wide variety of apps using the keyboard. For example, you can invoke Spotlight and type an action name, like start timer and press Return to initiate a timer in the Clock app. Spotlight then prompts you for the number of minutes.

For actions you perform regularly, you can speed things up by defining Quick Keys, which are character sequence shortcuts that stand in for the full action name. For example, you could set it up so that typing st in Spotlight expands to start timer.

Many Apple apps expose their features as Spotlight actions, and an ever-increasing number of third-party apps do as well. The only way to see which actions are available is to open Spotlight, press Command-3, and scroll through the list.

It’s worth calling out the fact that Apple’s Shortcuts app makes all its shortcuts available as Spotlight actions, so you can now use Spotlight to trigger additional automations.

Clipboard History

The other huge addition to Spotlight is clipboard history, which until now has required using a third-party utility. Clipboard history lets you access everything you have copied to the clipboard over a period of time, making it easy to paste text and graphics more than once. You turn on clipboard history and set Spotlight to remember clipboard items from the last 30 minutes, 8 hours, or 7 days in System Settings > Spotlight.

To access your clipboard history, invoke Spotlight, press Command-4, and either double-click an entry in the list or press the Down arrow key to select the desired clipboard item and press Return to paste it into the current text field. You can also type a few characters from the clipboard item to filter the list, but unfortunately, that works only with characters at the beginning of the item, not elsewhere.

Website Searches

Spotlight Web searches are quicker than switching to your Web browser, navigating to the site, finding the search field, and entering your search. Just open Spotlight, type the website name, press Tab, and then type a search string to search directly on that site. Sites that work well include Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, IMDb, and eBay, but it’s worth trying any website you have already searched in Safari.

Spotlight learns its site‑specific searches from Safari; if you primarily use another browser, perform a few searches in Safari first to seed Spotlight’s knowledge.

Spotlight History

Finally, if you use the same Spotlight commands repeatedly, you might be able to avoid some unnecessary typing by invoking Spotlight and then pressing the Up arrow repeatedly to cycle back through your previous Spotlight commands. Once the one you want appears, press Return to insert it just as though you had typed it. Having access to your Spotlight history isn’t a game-changer, but it’s worth remembering for occasional use.

Going Beyond Spotlight

Spotlight in Tahoe takes a big step toward launchers like LaunchBar, Alfred, and Raycast, but those tools still lead in customization and extensibility. For many users, Spotlight now covers the basics—launching apps, opening files, triggering actions, and recalling clipboard items. If you need more—file operations beyond opening, deep in‑app data access, universal Web search, window management, or bespoke extensions—LaunchBar, Alfred, and Raycast remain the better choice.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Wirestock)

Social Media: Spotlight in macOS 26 Tahoe received a major upgrade, and you can now filter results, run app actions, search sites directly, and browse clipboard history—all starting from a quick press of Command‑Space.

Liquid Glass Changes

Many of these changes stem from Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language, which we’ve previously covered in more detail. Familiar macOS interface elements with a new Liquid Glass appearance include:

• Rounded corners: You may be surprised by the more rounded corners in many interface elements, including windows. There’s no option to adjust the corner radius.
  
• Menu bar: Tahoe’s menu bar is now transparent, allowing app windows or desktop wallpapers to show through, which can make it less visually prominent at the top of the screen. To make it opaque, go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency. This setting also affects many other transparent interface elements.
  
• Icon style: Many developers are updating their icons to conform to Apple’s Liquid Glass guidelines. A more notable change is that users can now switch to dark mode icons, clear icons, or tinted icons in any color. Make these changes in System Settings > Appearance > Icon & Widget Style.
  
• Widget style: Desktop widgets are now mostly transparent when any window is open on the desktop, and they become solid only when the last window is closed or hidden. You can adjust this setting in System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Dim widgets on desktop. Widgets also adopt the same clear or tinted style used by icons.
  
• Customized folders: Folders start out blank, but you can Control-click one, choose Customize Folder, and pick an icon (monochrome) or emoji (colored) to brand the folder.
  
• Sidebars: Although they’re less transparent than other items, sidebars become subtly tinted based on what’s under them. That occasionally results in some awkward overlays, such as in System Settings > Wallpaper, where the thumbnails can scroll underneath the sidebar.
  

Safari

With Safari, Apple’s Liquid Glass interface causes the toolbar controls and the tab bar at the top to float over the page content underneath. On some sites, this can be distracting or make tab titles hard to read (below, top). If that bothers you, turning on System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency separates the controls from the content more clearly, but also gives them a gray background (below, bottom).

Control Center

In Tahoe, Control Center not only receives a Liquid Glass makeover but also gains notable new features. Similar to iOS and iPadOS, you can now fully customize the buttons, sliders, and other interface shortcuts in Control Center, removing those you don’t need and adding others. To get started with personalization, click Edit Controls at the bottom of Control Center.

The selection of commands is impressive enough on its own, but Apple also promises that independent developers will be able to offer controls for their apps. Clicking the + button in the menu bar provides the equivalent of additional Control Center pages from iOS: another menu bar icon that displays a different set of Control Center items. You can have as many of these extra Control Center pages as you want.

Lastly, note that you can add many items from Control Center directly to the menu bar, where they can function as toggles or quick access shortcuts.

Spotlight

Apple revamped Spotlight in Tahoe, adjusting its interface (yes, it’s transparent by default, too) and introducing clipboard history. When you activate Spotlight with Command-Space and move the pointer, four buttons appear to filter your search by apps, files, shortcut actions, and clipboard history—Command-1 through 4 serve the same purpose.

Previously, Spotlight separated different result types vertically; now you can click buttons just below the search box to filter results by category. Spotlight also remembers past searches, allowing you to use the arrow keys to browse backward and forward through your search history.

Spotlight’s new Apps view, which gets its own icon on the Dock, also replaces the longstanding but little-used Launchpad. If you want a full-screen grid of app icons, similar to Launchpad, consider Launchie, AppHub, or AppGrid Launcher.

Terminal

Although many people never open the Terminal app, which gives access to the Unix command line hidden in macOS, Apple has finally updated it to allow for more customization. Fortunately, Terminal still features completely opaque windows—transparency won’t make reading command-line output any easier. Each profile offers various customization options beyond appearance, so those who frequently use Terminal can tailor it to their preferences.

While we don’t want to downplay the impact these visual changes may have on your Mac experience, we’ve also found they’re easy to get used to or turn off. After using Tahoe for a few weeks, most of these changes will become the new normal. Apple will undoubtedly continue to polish Liquid Glass over the next year, refining its smoothness and eliminating awkward bits.

(Featured image by Apple)

Social Media: From transparent menu bars to customized folders, macOS 26 Tahoe introduces the most significant visual update in years. Discover the key interface changes that will influence your daily Mac use… and which you can turn off.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Nastco)

(Featured image by cottonbro from Pexels)

Here are a few of our favorite uses for Spotlight that you may not have been aware of.

Launch Apps and Open System Preference Panes

We recommend putting apps you use all the time in the Dock for quick access, but what about apps you need only occasionally? You can always root around in the Applications folder for them, but for quicker access, invoke Spotlight and type the first few characters of the app’s name (Spotlight will guess at what you want; if it’s wrong, keep typing). Then double-click the app in the results list or if it’s already selected, press Return. It’s a great way to bring up Activity Monitor to see what’s happening when your Mac feels slow. This trick also works wonders for opening panes in System Preferences.

For apps and preference panes whose names have multiple words, you can also try typing the first letter of each word, like ug to find and open the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences.

Convert Units and Currency

Need to figure out what 72º F is in Celsius? Or precisely how many quarts are in a 2-liter bottle? Spotlight can do all sorts of conversions for you. Just start typing your starting number, like 72, and then follow it with something that indicates your starting unit, such as “F” or “degrees.” Spotlight displays the conversion instantly, so you can tell if you’ve guessed wrong about the unit (K is degrees Kelvin, so you’d use km to figure out how many miles in a 24-kilometer race).

Particularly useful is Spotlight’s capability to do real-time currency conversions, since exchange rates fluctuate. It can’t do every currency on the planet, so you’re on your own if you need to check on Burundi francs, but you’ll find all the major currencies. The trick is knowing their abbreviations: the British pound is abbreviated GBP, the Canadian dollar is CAD, the Japanese yen is JPY, and so on. To convert from US dollars into another currency add the phrase “in GBP” or the like after the dollar amount.

Perform Calculations

We’ve come a long way from thinking that calculator watches are the height of geek chic, but a calculator is still handy now and then. When you want to perform a simple calculation for which a spreadsheet would be overkill, you could use Spotlight to launch the Calculator app, but it’s faster to type your calculation into Spotlight itself. It even supports parentheses for specifying an order of operations. The screenshot is just for illustration; we mostly use this feature to add up a series of numbers.

Look Up Words

Can’t remember the difference between “affect” and “effect”? macOS’s Dictionary app has all the help you need, but as with Calculator, Spotlight is a fast substitute. Type the word and click the entry under Definition to see the dictionary entry over on the side. If you want to look for synonyms in the thesaurus or explore other aspects of the word, press Return to open the word in the Dictionary app.

Track Airline Flights

Need to pick your relatives up at the airport? Rather than hoping that their flight will be on time, check to see if it is, with Spotlight. You can usually type the airline name and flight number, but it’s safest if you know the airline’s two-letter code, like DL for Delta, UA for United Airlines, and so on.

Find Movie Info and Show Times

Spotlight can even prove useful at the end of the day when you’re trying to figure out if a particular movie is playing at the local cineplex. Enter the title of a current movie and click its entry in the results under Movies to see all sorts of details, including its Rotten Tomatoes rating, when and where it’s playing, and if you can instead get it on iTunes.

Stocks, Sports Scores, and Weather

Wait, there’s more! Type a ticker symbol, like AAPL, into Spotlight to see the stock’s current price and activity for the day. Enter the name of a professional sports team to see the score of the team’s latest game (assuming they’re in season) and upcoming schedule. And type “weather” and a city name to check the climate conditions for that location and get an extended forecast.

Customize Spotlight

You’ve probably noticed all sorts of other odd items in the results list. That’s because there’s no telling what old email messages or documents might also contain your search term. But you can trim the results somewhat by turning certain items off. To do this, open System Preferences > Spotlight and deselect any categories that aren’t helpful.

If you never knew or have forgotten how useful Spotlight can be, give it a try!

(Featured image by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash)

Social Media: Among all the new stuff in macOS is a solid performer that too many Mac users overlook: Spotlight. Did you know you can use it to do currency conversions, track flights, check movie showtimes, and more?