Picka For Mac

Mac OS X comes with a default search tool, Spotlight, that indexes your computer’s content and offers you the possibility to query for particular documents via a search box activated by a keyboard shortcut. However, getting the results list usually takes a couple of seconds.

Picka is a minimalist OS X application that does the same thing mostly, yet the file’s metadata and index are kept in memory, so the search results are displayed almost instantly. Note that launching the application usually takes a bit longer than usual, so you must still have a little patience.

By default, Picka will index on launch your Applications directory, and your user folder. Within the Picka Preferences window, you get to modify these search location, either by removing or adding directories.

The Get Started panel displays the system-wide keyboard shortcut used by Picka to show its search box, and allows you to change it instantly. You can perform this action at a later time via the Preferences.

Picka employs a fuzzy search algorithm, which means that you do not have to use the exact file names as keywords. The utility tries to find the most relevant files and displays them in a list almost instantly.

Each entry in the results list comes with a keyboard shortcut, but you can also use the arrow keys or the mouse to navigate the list and open files. The utility displays the full file path, so you get to differentiate between items with the same name a lot faster.

On the downside, Picka can show only 8 entries in the results list, and finding the exact keywords combination that reveals the document you are looking for is more time consuming than scrolling through a list of more extensive possible results.

To conclude, Picka aims to be an alternative to the Apple vetted Spotlight search tool, and manages to display results a noticeable faster, yet the results list is much more limited.