Quick Search Box
The Quick Search Box is your fastest way to do web and desktop searches and to launch applications. You can call it up by pressing the ⌘ key twice and hide it by pressing ⌘ twice again. Type a few letters or words into the search box and your top results pop up instantly, including applications. For example, you can launch iTunes simply by typing "itu" into the Quick Search Box and pressing Return when iTunes appears as the first result.
Search Your Google Mail and Web History
Not everything that you are looking for lives on your Mac. Whether you are searching your computer or the web, Desktop helps you find it by searching your Google Mail and web history along with your hard drive. And as your index is stored locally on your own computer, you can even access your Google Mail and web history while you are offline.
New! Google Gadgets
Google Gadgets are interactive mini-applications that you can add to your Dashboard to show you new email, weather, photos and personalised news. Other gadgets include the clock, calendar, scratch pad, to-do list and many more.
Use the Google Gadgets application to choose from the enormous collection of gadgets created by Google and users all over the world.
Many File Types
Google Desktop automatically indexes and allows you to search the full text of virtually all your files, including the following types:
- Google Mail
- text files (.txt)
- PDF
- HTML
- email from Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage
- iChat transcripts
- Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
- music and video files, including artist and song names
- Address Book contacts
- system preference panes
- file and folder names
Google Desktop also searches file types that have a Spotlight importer.
Familiar Results
When you do a Desktop search, you will see a list of search results. Each result, just like Google web search results, includes the file name and a brief snippet with your search terms highlighted. You can also filter for a particular type of item - only emails, for instance - by using the links at the top of your Desktop search results page.
Smart Indexing
After you install Google Desktop, it starts indexing the files that are already on your Mac. This one-time indexing is designed to peacefully co-exist with your normal work, so you can continue working while indexing takes place. Depending on how many files and other items you have on your computer, this process can take up to several hours. Once it is done, Desktop makes sure your index stays up to date by adding new emails as soon as you receive them, files as you update them and web pages as you view them.
Google Integration
What if you already have the information that you are looking for but do not realise that you do? When there are useful results on your Mac related to your Google web search, Google Desktop will include these files with your search results. There's also a simple command centre for searching your computer, which you can access by clicking "Desktop" above the search box on Google.co.uk.
File Versioning
Google Desktop creates cached copies (snapshots) of your files and other items each time that you view them and stores these copies on your computer’s hard drive. As a result, you can often use Desktop to find previous versions of your files or ones that you have accidentally deleted.
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