How to search for a word across all your PDFs on a Mac
Find which PDF mentions a name, number or phrase with Spotlight and Finder on a Mac, without opening any, and why scanned PDFs do not show up.
The problem
You know one of your 300 PDFs mentions a name or an invoice number, and you have no idea which.
How do I search inside all PDFs on my Mac?
Your Mac indexes the words inside PDFs, so you can search them without opening any. The quickest way is Spotlight: press Command Space and type the word. PDFs containing it appear under Documents.
How do I search PDF contents in one folder?
- Open a Finder window on the folder and press Command F.
- Type the word in the search field and choose Contents rather than Name.
- Click + to add a rule: Kind is PDF.
- Click Save to keep the search in the sidebar if you will use it again.
How do I search PDFs from Terminal?
mdfind -onlyin ~/Documents 'kMDItemContentType == "com.adobe.pdf" && kMDItemTextContent == "*invoice*"cd'cd at the end ignores case and accents. Folders Spotlight does not index, such as hidden folders, return nothing.
Why does Spotlight not find text in my scanned PDF?
A scan is a picture with no text, so there is nothing to index; it only shows up by file name. Make it searchable, and Spotlight finds it by its words.
Our take
Make scans searchable as they come in, not when you are looking for one. A folder of unsearchable scans is invisible to every search on your Mac, and the day you need a word from one is the day you have least time to fix 300 of them.
Inside one PDF instead: find a word in a PDF. Simply PDF's Make Searchable, with a key, adds text to scans on your Mac, after which Spotlight and Finder find them like any other PDF.
Questions
How do I search inside all PDFs on my Mac?
Use Spotlight, or Finder's search set to Contents with a Kind is PDF rule.
Why does Spotlight not find text in my scanned PDF?
The scan has no text, only a picture. Add a text layer with text recognition.