Spotlight is a computer search engine that makes searching for files in OS X on your Mac easier than it has ever been.
It always happens. You know you saved a file on your computer, but when you go to look for it, it is nowhere to be found. Spotlight, one of the features found in OS X: Tiger makes finding that missing file easy to do, as well as finding anything else you may be looking for on your computer, including pictures.
What is Spotlight?
Spotlight is essentially a search engine for your entire system. With the click of a button you can search through all of the images, contacts, emails, files, calendars, and applications on your Mac all at once. Pretty impressive.
With most search engines of this type you'll spend tons of time waiting for all of the search results to come in. The way Spotlight is designed the search results show up on your computer screen much quicker. In fact, in most cases the search results will start popping up while you are still typing in your search criteria.
What if I don't know what I named the file?
Spotlight searches the data inside files as well as file names. If you wrote a fantastic email about flying chickens and want to find it, you can search "chickens" and it will show up in your search data. Spotlight can also search through photoshop files and applications to find what you're looking for.
I don't have a lot of time
Spotlight starts bringing in search results from the very first letter you type in, so time generally isn't a factor. In many cases your computer will find what you're looking for before you're done typing it in.
