Finding all the video files on your computer?

[klmck63]

"All My Files" in Finder doesn't seem to find all my files?

On the storage section of "About This Mac", it says that I have 127 GB of movies on my computer. I used the "All My Files" option on the Finder, took all the movies and put them in a folder to remove them to an external hard drive, but the folder was only 10 GB.

Is there some easy way to find all 127 GB of movie files? My hard drive is obviously starting to get too full, and I bought a second external drive specifically I could store the movies separately, but I can't find an efficient way to do this?

 

[IWT]

Welcome to the Forums

If you open Spotlight (Cmd + Space Bar, for example) and type - Kind:video - it bring up all your video files and you are given the option to view them in Finder. From here you can, copy, delete, whatever.

Please let us know if this solves your difficulty.

Ian

 

[klmck63]

When I type in "Kind:video" I get nothing at all, only an option to open spotlight preferences. I also tried Kind:movie which brought up about 50GB of movies, but still (according to "About This Mac") not all of them.

 

[oschohn]

When I type in "Kind:video" I get nothing at all, only an option to open spotlight preferences. I also tried Kind:movie which brought up about 50GB of movies, but still (according to "About This Mac") not all of them.

I have exactly the same problem...
It s a bit weird as i spent quite some time to find those videos but couldn't find any...
Did you manage to find a solution?

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum. What Mac, what version OS X are you using? What are you trying to do in finding all the video? There are multiple solutions, depending on what it is you are trying to achieve and what triggered the search.

 

[oschohn]

Thanks Jake!
According "about my Mac" I have like 70GB of videos... Bringing the capacity to almost full. So the main idea is to clean a bit. I would like to find those 70GB to check what it is and either delete or put on a hard drive.
I tried with the extensions (AVI and MP4, etc...) but didn't find anything relevant.
Best

 

[chas_m]

A "smart folder" set to list any filed that is "either "video" or uses one of the standard extensions" should bring up anything you've brought into the machine. A handful of small videos used by the system (like the ones that demonstrate trackpad use) may not show up because they're reserved for system use and can't be thrown away.

 

[Rod]

If you have a little patience and time I would suggest a free app (donationware) called Disk Inventory X. With a little practice and there is an explanatory video on the site as well as in the software package, you will find that you can locate all of you video files and the paths to them.
Also remember that your video storage percentage values will not change until you remove the files from your hard drive, empty your trash and reboot.

 

[MacInWin]

"About My Mac" is buggy. What do you get when you right click (Option-click) on the drive icon and then Get Info? That's a more accurate indicator of how much space is on the drive. I don't use About This Mac for details on drives and the data distribution on them.

 

[Rod]

Yes I've noticed that myself. I always assumed it was related to Spotlight indexing.

 

[davesice]

On the storage section of "About This Mac", it says that I have 127 GB of movies on my computer. I used the "All My Files" option on the Finder, took all the movies and put them in a folder to remove them to an external hard drive, but the folder was only 10 GB.

Is there some easy way to find all 127 GB of movie files? My hard drive is obviously starting to get too full, and I bought a second external drive specifically I could store the movies separately, but I can't find an efficient way to do this?

6 years later I bet you are still looking for the answer and have not been able to sleep much since. But try Kind:film that will solve that problem

 

[pm-r]

6 years later I bet you are still looking for the answer and have not been able to sleep much since. But try . There that will solve that problem

Welcome to mac-forums, and I'm sure no one's lost too much sleep, but just for your info, Kind:film is not one of the Search by type expressions.

For a list of those that are, checkout here:
Narrow your searches in Spotlight and Finder
macOS Sierra: Narrow your searches in Spotlight and Finder



- Patrick
======

 

[Rod]

Glad to see it's not just me.

 

[davesice]

But the best way to find all movie types is it not? Works great for me, and a more useful answer than Kind:video since that only returns mkv, m4v and f4v files on my machine while Kind:film returns all types.

But just make sure you do not press enter, after Kind:film and all video files will be shown.

Can't blame a guy for making sure everyone is sleeping good.

 

[davesice]

Welcome to mac-forums, and I'm sure no one's lost too much sleep, but just for your info, Kind:film is not one of the Search by type expressions.

For a list of those that are, checkout here:
Narrow your searches in Spotlight and Finder
macOS Sierra: Narrow your searches in Spotlight and Finder



- Patrick
======

But the best way to find all movie types is it not? Works great for me, and a more useful answer than Kind:video since that only returns mkv, m4v and f4v files on my machine while Kind:film returns all types.

But just make sure you do not press enter, after Kind:film and all video files will be shown.

Can't blame a guy for making sure everyone is sleeping good.

 

[pm-r]

But just make sure you do not press enter, after Kind:film and all video files will be shown.

Well, I'm glad it works for you, but using "Kind:film" shows nothing listed as being on my iMac, but "Kind:video" sure does.
And using "kind:movie" finds a lot more.

Maybe it's due to the Finder version, and I'm mainly using Mavericks 10.9.5, FWIW.



- Patrick
======

 

[davesice]

Well, I'm glad it works for you, but using "Kind:film" shows nothing listed as being on my iMac, but "Kind:video" sure does.
And using "kind:movie" finds a lot more.

Maybe it's due to the Finder version, and I'm mainly using Mavericks 10.9.5, FWIW.



- Patrick
======

Okay that is strange, maybe it is that, I am using Mojave with Finder version 10.14.2. So at least might be useful for someone, just wanted to put it out there, since it is a pretty useful feature to have.

Have a screenshot here if it works, with all my 1,473 video files showing up:

 

[IWT]

Like Patrick,

kind:film shows "No Results"
kind:video shows a lot
kind:movie shows the most by far

I have macOS High Sierra.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

Thanks Ian,


- Patrick
======

 

[davesice]

Just to carry on with my side, so in Mojave kind:movie also shows most results, that is because kind:movie also lists shockwave flash movie files and playlists, something not necessarily of interest when looking for video files, it categorises the search results to documents, films and other, (other being multiple tiny swf files in my case) When I do kind:film (without pressing enter, otherwise nothing shows up) only actual playable video-type files show up and therefore it is most useful for my search purposes.

kind:films does the same.

Thank you Ian for your input.