catalinafindermacossearchspotlight
I have already limited Spotlight search to Applications inside System Preferences > Spotlight
However, this seems to actually just limit searches to the directory /Applications.
It means there are results from application files, configuration files, etc..
Is it possible to limit Spotlight search results to the .app file extension?
Using macOS Catalina (10.15.7).
Thanks
Craig
Find the importer used to import that type of file.
mdimport -d 4 -n /path/to/file 2>&1 | grep Imported
mdimport -d 4 -n ~/Desktop/avatar.png 2>&1 | grep Imported
2014-06-19 11:17:04.929 mdimport[30911:412893] Imported '/Users/grgarside/Desktop/avatar.png' of type 'public.png' with plugIn /System/Library/Spotlight/Image.mdimporter.
The above example shows the type as public.png in the Image.mdimporter importer.
Open /path/to/importer/Contents/Info.plist in an editor.
Find the item of the same type as the type of the file that you found from the above command and delete it.
Reimport the importer.
mdimport -r /path/to/importer
mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/Image.mdimporter
Don't forget to have backups and note this procedure may be overridden on OS X updates.
Launching applications with Quicksilver the “manual” way is so fast, I’ve never even bothered assigning a keystroke for one. If you did want a keystroke, you could limit the scope so it’s not active in certain applications, or so it’s only active in certain applications.
Also note that Quicksilver will very quickly learn that when you type “it”, you want iTerm by default and not iTunes, so you won’t need to remove it from the results entirely. And unlike Spotlight, you can find iTerm2 by typing something like “trm”.
Best Answer
Interesting. I saw your clarification; you want Spotlight to only search apps, always, or to default to that, and you can opt out?
I don't think you can, directly, but you could record an Automator flow that launches Spotlight, adds the appropriate kind:app, and then change the system keyboard shortcut to point to your flow.
It really depends on what you are trying to do. Spotlight searches are quite valuable for documents, are you sure you want to give that up?
Also, have you considered using Alfred or something like it, instead?