Searching for hidden files in Spotlight

How to search your computer for invisible files.

Begin the search as you would any search

1. Type in the name of the file you want to locate here
2. Expand the search to include the entire computer or just your home folder
3. Choose whether to search the contents of the file (not relevant in this type of search) or the file name

Results

After Spotlight shows you the results, which will likely be empty, refind the search by hitting the + at Step 1.

Use the drop down box where it says "Kind" and select Other… at Step 2.

Search attribute selection box

This is where Spotlight gets very powerful (and possibly confusing). This long list of options are all possible things that Spotlight knows about the files on your computer.

Narrow the list of choices

To search for invisible files, type in "invisible" in the search field to narrow the choices. If you would like to make this selection easier to access, check the "In Menu" box and it will show up in the same drop down box where you chose "Other…" from the step above. When done, select OK.

Show results

After pressing OK, you will be presented wit a search results window showing the matched files. The screen shot above was taken prior to the results of the search being shown because I don’t have a file that contains ".0112" in the filename and I dind’t want to show a blank window.