How to Launch Spotlight from the Terminal

Question

I used this tip top hide my menu bar in a bunch of applications, which is a great way to get more free screen space. The one downside is that (for inexplicable reasons) it disables Spotlight when I'm in those applications--e.g. even if I hover over the menu bar to make it appear, clicking on the Spotlight icon does nothing.

I have a plan to work around this: I'd like to launch Spotlight using QuicKeys, which lets you run terminal commands using keyboard shortcuts. But to do that, I need to know how to launch Spotlight with a terminal command. Does anyone know how to do this?

I'm on OS X 10.6.

Answer 1

You can use the command-line program mdfind as a complete substitution for the Spotlight GUI. Accessing results is a bit inconvenient, though.

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You can, using a little GUI scripting, open a Finder window, and perform a Spotlight search there.

For this to work, you need support for assistive devices in System Preferences » Universal Access and Full Keyboard Access in System Preferences » Keyboard » Keyboard Shortcuts.

Open /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor.app, and enter the following script:

on run argv # we expect program arguments
    tell application "Finder"
        activate # focus Finder
        tell application "System Events"
            keystroke "f" using command down # press Cmd-F
            keystroke (item 1 of argv) # enter the program argument into search box
            key code 36 # press enter
            key code 48 # press tab
            keystroke " " # press space
        end tell
    end tell
end run

^{The steps "press tab" and "press space" are only necessary if you have not specified Search This Mac in Finder » Preferences » Advanced -- then we tab&select the This Mac option in the Finder search window.}

Now save as Script, and execute from Terminal like this:

osascript spotlight.scpt test

What happens then looks somewhat like this:

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_{The "Spotlight" action for Automator is probably not a good idea, since it runs until all results are available. Combined with Reveal Finder Items is a great way to see what opening 10,000 Finder windows looks like.}

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Other options, as always, are using applications such as LaunchBar, Alfred or Butler to initiate Spotlight search or provide an alternative UI.

Answer 2

From the Spotlight manual :

There are no configurations to Spotlight, and users should not run manually.

Guess that explains it all.