How to Search for Only PDFs, Images or Videos on a Mac

November 5, 2026 · 6 min read

Looking for every PDF on your Mac, or only the videos in a project folder? Both the Finder and Folia Files can narrow a search to one kind of file. Here is the short answer, then the details that make the difference.

In the Finder: press ⌘F, then set the criterion row to Kind › PDF (or Image, Movie, Music). Or type kind:pdf in the search field.
In Folia Files: open a search, click the Filter pill and tick PDF, Images or Videos under Show Only. You don't have to type anything: the filter alone lists every file of that kind.

In the Finder: the Kind criterion

Find every PDF, image or video

Open a Finder window and press ⌘F (File › Find).
Under the toolbar, choose where to look: This Mac, or the folder you were in.
In the criterion row, keep Kind in the first menu and choose PDF, Image, Movie or Music in the second. If no row is shown, click the + button at the right of the search bar.
To narrow it down, type a word in the search field.

The Save button keeps the search as a Smart Folder, so you can run it again later.

Or type it

In the Finder's search field, or in Spotlight (⌘Space), the kind: keyword does the same: kind:pdf, kind:image, kind:movie, kind:music. Add words before it to narrow the results: lease kind:pdf.

The pitfalls

One kind at a time. For PDFs or images, you need a group of criteria: hold ⌥ and click the + button (it turns into …), then choose Any in the group. That works, but it is a lot of clicks for a quick search.
Words match more than names. A word typed in the Finder's field is looked for in names, contents and other metadata, so lease kind:pdf lists every PDF that mentions a lease anywhere. The menu that appears under the field offers Name matches when you only want the name.
Only what Spotlight indexed. The Finder's search is Spotlight's. A drive Spotlight doesn't index, a network share, or a folder on Spotlight's privacy list gives no results at all, and nothing tells you why (more in Spotlight not finding files on an external drive?).
System files are left out. That is usually what you want. When you do need them, add the System files criterion (under Other… in the first menu) and set it to are included.

In Folia Files: one filter for the kind and for what to include

Folia Files has a single search with a filter that works the same everywhere: on your disk, in iCloud Drive and other cloud folders, and on drives that Spotlight doesn't index. More on the search page.

Steps

Click Find (the magnifying glass in the toolbar) or press ⇧⌘F (Edit › New Search). The Search module opens at the top of the tab, searching Everywhere unless you chose another place in Settings › Search.
Click the Filter pill, the one with the funnel. Under Show Only, tick PDF, Images, Videos… Tick several to get PDFs and images in the same list. All Kinds clears the choice. The menu stays open while you tick, and the results update at once.
Type words, or nothing at all: with the filter alone, the list shows every file of those kinds in the places searched.
The pill now says what it keeps (PDF, Images, PDF) and is tinted, so a filtered search is easy to spot.

In the example below, "2026" typed in the home folder finds a spreadsheet, a folder, videos, PDF invoices, screenshots and a scan. Tick PDF and only the invoices remain.

The kinds are Folders, Images, Videos, Audio, PDF, Documents, Archives, Applications and Other. PDF has its own entry, apart from Documents (text, presentations, spreadsheets, RTF, HTML, EPUB). Each result is classified by its file extension, exactly like the filter of the panes, and Spotlight is asked for those types first, so the search stays fast.

Words and a kind together

The pill next to the filter says where your words are looked for: In the name (the default), In the text of documents, including text written in screenshots and scans, or In pictures, for what photos show. Combined with the filter, it answers precise questions:

PDFs whose name contains "2026": In the name + PDF.
PDFs that mention a lease: In the text + PDF. Without the filter, the same words also find a screenshot of an email and a scanned page.
Videos named "drone": In the name + Videos.

To find photos by what they show, a beach or a dog, see how to find photos on your Mac by what's in them.

Why system files are left out, and how to include them

Spotlight indexes macOS itself. Ask it for every PDF or every image on the Mac and you also get thousands of help pages, icons and wallpapers that belong to the system: the files you wanted drown in them. So Folia Files leaves three groups out by default, each with its own switch under Also Include, in the same menu:

System Files, chosen by location, never by type: the System folder (except its apps, which the Finder shows in Applications), the Mac's Library and each user's Library (~/Library), the Unix folders (/usr, /private, /opt…), the "Previously Relocated Items" a macOS update leaves in Users › Shared, and Windows leftovers on a shared disk (Thumbs.db, $RECYCLE.BIN). A .plist or .js file in your own folders is still searched. And if you pick one of these places as the place to search, say /Library/Fonts, it is searched whole.
Hidden Files: names that start with a dot (.git, .env…) or files macOS hides.
Package contents: the inside of apps, Photos libraries, Pages documents, all folders that the Mac shows as a single file. The package itself is always found; tick this to search what it holds too. Archives such as .zip are not packages: their contents are never searched.

When one of them is included, the pill counts it: Filter (1), or PDF (+1) next to a kind. Hover over the pill to read the whole filter. At the bottom of the menu, More complete, slower appears when it can make a difference: Go through every folder, without the index for a name search, Read every document, without Spotlight for a text search.

Only the PDFs of the folder you're looking at

Don't need the subfolders? Each pane has its own funnel in its header, Filter by Kind. Tick PDF and the folder shows only its PDFs. Folders stay visible so you can keep browsing, and the filter follows the pane from folder to folder until you choose Remove Filter.

Keep the searches you repeat

The Searches section of the left sidebar comes with PDF Documents, All Photos, All Videos and All Music: one click runs them. Your own filtered search can join them with Save… at the bottom of the Search module, with its kinds and what it includes.