can someone explain to me what

pigoo3

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finder and spotlight can/or will provide to me, the new mac user?.....Dennis

"Spotlight" is a searching program (files on your computer).

"Finder" is when you're working in the "desktop environment"...very similar to the "Desktop" in the Windows OS world.

Apple just calls the "desktop environment" by a different name (which Apple developed and named it "Finder") long BEFORE (1984) Microsoft & Bill Gates came out with Windows (Windows version 1.0 came out in November, 1985)

HTH,:)

- Nick
 
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Spotlight will focus your search, depending on how you've set your spotlight preferences. For example if you type spotlight there, it will give results in a list from your computer, email, web etc and it bypasses (?) the use of finder by giving you a long list but it will also show you those references in finder that are on your computer if you select 'Show All'. Spotlight will also access the abilities of other apps on your computer (I imagine there's a limit) ie. if you type in 6+1 it will give you the calculator answer.

Finder will show you all files depending on where/how you access it and it will focus but will not access email or web.
 
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Finder is like File Explorer, Spotlight is like Search, only much, much easier to use and faster.
 
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I like to use Spotlight to fast open apps: Hit command+space, type the first few letters of an App, hit enter. Voila :) Way faster than grabbing the mouse, starting Launchpad, ...
 

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