How To Search For Text In Files Mac

Text File on a Mac. A text file is one of the simplest types of files you can create on a computer. It can be opened by many different programs and doesn't include any special formatting, fonts, images or other embedded data. To save a search as a Smart Folder, on the Search tab, click Save Search, and then enter a name for it under Smart Folders. Search within an item Open the item.

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Navigate to your Applications folder and double-click TextEdit.

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Your TextEdit window opens.

Press cmd+O.

The Open dialog appears.

Navigate to the desired text file and double-click the filename to load it.

You can also open an existing text file by dragging its icon from the Finder window to the TextEdit icon.

Click the insertion cursor anywhere in the file and begin typing.

To edit existing text, drag the insertion cursor across the characters to highlight them and type the replacement text. TextEdit automatically replaces the existing characters with those that you type. To simply delete text, highlight the characters and press Delete.

Press Command+S.

Search for text in files mac terminal

This saves your changes. Alternatively, you can save a new version by choosing File→Save As and typing a new, unique filename.

Active2 years, 3 months ago

I'd like to find all files that contain a certain string of text. How would you do that in the Terminal?

Chealion
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SvishSvish
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5 Answers

Ignacio Vazquez-AbramsIgnacio Vazquez-Abrams
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user46046user46046
  1. Through Ack

brew install ack ack 'text goes here'

  1. Through find

find . |grep 'text goes here'

  1. Through grep

grep -RnslI 'text goes here'

Anant GuptaAnant Gupta

You can choose one of the below depending on your taste and needs. Supposing you need to search for files containing text - 'async', recursively in current directory, you can do so in one of the ways like below:

Using grep

Using ack

karthikskarthiks
How To Search For Text In Files Mac

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Ignacio's Answer is great and helped me find the files containing certain text. The only issue I was facing was that when running this command all the files would be listed, including one where the pattern did not show up.

No such file or directory This is what I see alongside files that do not contain the pattern.

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If instead you add -s to the command, as in:grep -lr 'text pattern' ./ -s ; grep -lr 'text pattern' [PATH DIRECTORY] -s is used, it will only show you which files contain the pattern.

Similarly if grep -nr 'text pattern' ./ -s ; grep -nr 'text pattern' [PATH OF DIRECTORY] -s command is used it prints the file plus the line number, and occurrence of the pattern.

Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

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Search For Text In Files Mac Terminal

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