What Flick does with Preview
- A row for each Preview window. Every PDF or image in a window of its own is a row, on any Space, minimized ones included.
- Search that knows where the file lives. Preview reports the file each window shows, so document search can tell two PDFs with the same name apart by the folder they're in.
- The path stays private. Flick reads it over Accessibility and never opens the file. The names stay in memory, never shown, saved, logged or sent. See what Flick reads.
Search by file or folder name
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Open search
Hold ⌥, tap Tab and start typing. Or press ⇧⌘Space in any app to open Flick with search ready.
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Type a file or folder name
Two PDFs called invoice.pdf look the same in the list. Type “acme invoice” and only the one in your Acme folder is left, since each word can match a different name: the folder or the file.
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Let go
Release ⌥ to switch to the window. In a search you opened with Return or ⇧⌘Space, press Return.
Matches in the path rank below a title that starts with what you typed. More in searching document and folder names.
PDFs from Downloads and Mail
Many PDFs come from a download or an email, and those are the ones a folder name won't find. Downloads, like Documents and Desktop, holds nearly every file of its kind, so Flick skips it, and Mail keeps attachments in folders named with a long ID, which Flick skips too. Find those PDFs by their file name, or move the ones you keep into a folder of your own, inside Downloads or Documents or in iCloud Drive: that folder's name counts. The full rules are in which folder names count.
Preview tabs
Preview puts PDFs in tabs when you choose Window › Merge All Windows, or when Prefer tabs when opening documents is set to Always in System Settings › Desktop & Dock, under Windows. The setting is in the same place on macOS 14 and later.
A window of tabs is one rowEach tab is a window of its own, but macOS shows only the front tab's window and puts the others away until you pick their tabs. Flick leaves out windows put away like that, so the row is named after the tab in front, and only that tab's file is searched. Pick the row, then press ⌃Tab or ⌃⇧Tab to reach the other tabs.
To give a PDF its own row, select its tab and choose Window › Move Tab to New Window, or drag the tab out of the tab bar. Why tabs show as one row covers Finder and Terminal too.
Images follow Preview › Settings › Images › When opening files: Open each file in its own window gives every image a row, while Open groups of files in the same window gives images you open together one window, so one row.
Keys
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌥⇧W | Closes the selected window while you hold ⌥. Flick stays open, so you can close several PDFs in a row. |
| ⌃Tab | In Preview: shows the next tab. ⌃⇧Tab shows the previous one. |
With the ⌘Tab trigger, or once the list stays open, closing is ⌘W. See all of Flick's keyboard shortcuts.
Questions
Can Flick find a PDF by a word inside it?
No. Flick never opens a PDF, so the text inside isn't searched. It matches the app, the title and the names in the file's location.
Why doesn't a folder name find my PDF?
The folder may be one Flick skips, such as Downloads, or the PDF may be in a background tab. Your list settings, such as Show only the active Space and Ignored Apps, apply to search too.
Does this need a license?
No. The free version searches file and folder names too, within your 5 most recent windows, and tells you how many more windows match, never which.
Sources
Checked on .
- Display several files in one Preview window on Mac (Prefer tabs when opening documents; When opening files), Preview User Guide, Apple Support
- Use tabs in windows on Mac (Merge All Windows, Move Tab to New Window, ⌃Tab and ⌃⇧Tab; the macOS 14 version has the same setting in Desktop & Dock), Mac User Guide, Apple Support
