Mac – How to find files with no extension in Finder

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I'm trying to find all files that have no extension in a Finder folder. I know how to search by extension and exclude a specific extension but what do I type in the box if I want no extension at all?

Best Answer

You can set up a Finder search like this:

- None of the following is true:
- - Filename contains .
- - Kind is Folder

The Finder does however exclude some system items from search results. The same search criteria produced 19'077 search results in Finder and 131'666 in HoudahSpot.

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to create a Saved Search that excludes a specific folder from the results

I looked at some of the saved search files in Finder's application bundle, and for example /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/MyLibraries/myDocuments.cannedSearch/search.savedSearch used a format like this for excluding directories:

<key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
<array>
  <string>~/</string>
  <string>-Library</string>
  <string>-Music/iTunes</string>
  <string>-Documents/Steam Content</string>
  <string>~/Library/Mobile Documents/</string>
  <string>-com~apple~Keynote</string>
  <string>-com~apple~Pages</string>
  <string>-com~apple~Numbers</string>
</array>

So you can exclude subfolders by adding strings that start with a minus character after a full path. Something like -~/Library doesn't seem to work.

You can edit savedSearch files by dropping them on a text editor. RawQueryDict:SearchScopes and FXScope:FXScopeArrayOfPaths seem to list the same paths by default, but just editing the second one appeared to exclude folders at least in Finder.

Exclude sub-folders from Finder search

Use Unix find as follows

find . -maxdepth 1 -name config.txt -print

In Terminal, type man find for details.

If you do this often, you can make it into a shell function.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to create a Saved Search that excludes a specific folder from the results

Exclude sub-folders from Finder search

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