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Using Cardinal

Download

Install this fork with Homebrew:

brew install --cask seedds/tap/cardinal

Fork builds are available from seedds/cardinal Releases. The current fork release is 0.1.27. See the changelog for search responsiveness, Trash, selection, and icon stability fixes.

For the upstream Cardinal distribution:

brew install --cask cardinal-search

You can also grab the latest packaged builds from GitHub Releases.

i18n support

Need a different language? Click the ⚙️ button in the status bar to switch instantly.

Search basics

Cardinal now speaks an Everything-compatible syntax layer on top of the classic substring/prefix tricks:

• report draft – space acts as AND, so you only see files whose names contain both tokens.
• *.pdf briefing – filter to PDF results whose names include “briefing”.
• *.zip size:>100MB – search for ZIP files larger than 100MB.
• in:/Users demo !.psd – restrict the search root to /Users, then search for files whose names contain demo but exclude .psd.
• tag:ProjectA;ProjectB – match Finder tags (macOS); ; acts as OR.
• *.md content:"Bearer " – filter to Markdown files containing the string Bearer .
• "Application Support" – quote exact phrases.
• brary/Applicat – use / as a path separator for sub-path searching, matching directories like Library/Application Support.
• /report · draft/ · /report/ – wrap tokens with leading and/or trailing slashes to force prefix, suffix, or exact name matches when you need whole-word control beyond Everything syntax.
• ~/**/.DS_Store – globstar (**) dives through every subfolder under your home directory to find stray .DS_Store files anywhere in the tree.

For the supported operator catalog—including boolean grouping, folder scoping, extension filters, regex usage, and more examples—see doc/pub/search-syntax.md.

Keyboard shortcuts & previews

• Cmd+Shift+Space – toggle the Cardinal window globally via the quick-launch hotkey.
• Cmd+, – open Preferences.
• Esc – hide the Cardinal window.
• ArrowUp/ArrowDown – move the selection.
• Shift+ArrowUp/Shift+ArrowDown – extend the selection.
• Space – Quick Look the currently selected row without leaving Cardinal.
• Cmd+O – open the highlighted result.
• Cmd+R – reveal the highlighted result in Finder.
• Cmd+C – copy the selected files to the clipboard.
• Cmd+Shift+C – copy the selected paths to the clipboard.
• Cmd+F – jump focus back to the search bar.
• F2 – rename one selected file without overwriting an existing destination.
• F8 – move selected files to Trash.
• F9 – open a terminal in the focused selected file’s directory, or inside the selected folder. With multiple selections, only the focused selected row is used.
• ArrowUp/ArrowDown (in search bar) – cycle search history.

Set Preferences → Terminal application to an absolute application path such as /Applications/iTerm.app to change the terminal used by F9. The default is macOS Terminal; clearing the field or resetting preferences restores it. Custom terminals must support opening directories through macOS. F9 applies while Cardinal is active and no dialog or text field is focused; window/tab placement follows the terminal’s preferences.

The context menu also supports revealing the first selected file in Double Commander.

Happy searching!

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Building Cardinal

Requirements

• macOS 12+
• Rust toolchain
• Node.js 18+ with npm
• Xcode command-line tools & Tauri prerequisites (https://tauri.app/start/prerequisites/)

Development mode

From the repository root, run the optimized local app:

./run-cardinal-release.sh

The script installs frontend dependencies if needed and starts Tauri with Rust release optimizations. It launches without a confirmation prompt. Quit an existing Cardinal instance first; press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop the development run.

For a debug run preceded by search and selection regression tests:

./test-cardinal.sh

See TESTING.md for checks and desktop scenarios, and CONTEXT.md for the current implementation and release status.

The equivalent direct development command, with optional developer features, is:

cd cardinal
npm run tauri dev -- --release --features dev

Production build

cd cardinal
npm run tauri build