Spotlight is a high-speed search feature built into macOS. For example, with PDF files, when a search keyword is entered, Spotlight incrementally finds files containing that string within their contents and displays them in a list.
It’s convenient to find the file with the text typed inside as a clue—especially in situations like, “I think I created an illustration with similar content before,” or “I need old data for a revision, but where did I save it?”
However, with Illustrator files (.ai), Spotlight cannot detect text within the file. Searches only return results based on filenames, so relying on our own memory is the only way to access the content. If full-text search is to be implemented using makeshift methods, the following approaches could be considered, for example.
Include a summary in the file name
Create a separate PDF or text file for search purposes, in addition to the Illustrator file (.ai)
However, that would be too time-consuming, and clients often specify naming conventions like “001-01.ai.” Ideally, it would be great to be able to search using the usual .ai files without having to take any special action on the parts.
So this time, meet Artfind.mdimporter, a Spotlight plugin for macOS that makes it possible to search for text and other information within Illustrator files (.ai).