How to search inside your videos on a Mac
01Which option fits you
- Videos in the Photos app and a Mac with Apple Intelligence: use Photos search (free). Step by step below.
- You edit in Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro: use their built-in search. See the comparison of Mac apps that search inside videos.
- A handful of videos in folders: tag them by hand so Spotlight can find them (free, slow).
- Lots of videos in folders, maybe mixed with recordings, photos and PDFs: HyperArc (paid).
02Options at a glance
| Feature | Spotlight | Apple Photos | Final Cut Pro 12 | HyperArc |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Searches inside video/audio | No. Video and audio files are found by name and metadata (title, duration and so on), not by what is shown or said in them | Videos in your Photos library. Describe a moment and Photos can find it inside the video | Yes, for clips in your library. Visual Search finds objects and actions. Transcript Search finds spoken English words or related phrases | Yes. Video and audio files are split into time segments (2 minutes by default) and you search them by describing what you want |
| Images | By file name and metadata. It can sometimes match text that appears in a picture, but results are inconsistent | Yes, photos in your Photos library, by description | Built for video clips, not photo folders | Yes, by describing what is in the picture |
| PDFs | Yes, the full text of PDFs that have a text layer. Scanned PDFs need OCR first | No | No | Yes, page by page. Also plain text files (.txt, .md, .csv, .json, .html) |
| Works offline | Yes | Not specified by Apple for this feature | Not stated by Apple. Clips are analyzed in the background after import | Partly. Indexing and new search queries call Gemini, so they need a connection. Repeat queries are cached locally |
| Where processing happens | On your Mac | Apple Intelligence. Photos processes your library in the background, so results can take a while to show up | Background clip analysis inside Final Cut Pro. Needs a Mac with Apple silicon | Each chunk (video clip, PDF page, image) goes to Google's Gemini embedding API with your own key. The index and search live in a local SQLite database on your Mac |
| Price | Free, built into macOS | Free, built into macOS | $299.99 one-time on the Mac App Store (US), or included in Apple Creator Studio ($12.99 a month or $129 a year) | $29 one-time launch price (regular $129), up to 3 Macs. Gemini usage is billed by Google (free tier works to try) |
| Platform | macOS | macOS 15.1 or later on an M1 or later Mac, with Apple Intelligence on. Not available in every language or region | macOS, Apple silicon required for these search features | macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel |
| Best at | Opening apps and finding files, emails and documents by name or exact words, instantly | Personal photos and videos that already live in the Photos app | Final Cut editors searching footage they have already imported | Finding a moment, page or photo across folders of mixed media when you only remember what it looked or sounded like |
03Free option 1: Photos search
Needs a Mac with M1 or later, macOS 15.1 or later, and Apple Intelligence turned on. Apple Intelligence isn't available in every language or region.
- Turn on Apple Intelligence in System Settings if it isn't already.
- Get the videos into Photos (File, then Import). Photos copies them into its library by default.
- Give Photos time. It processes the library in the background, and new items won't show up in search right away.
- Click the search field in the toolbar (or press Command-F) and describe what you are looking for, like “kid blowing out candles”.
- Filter the results to videos and open the one you want.
Limits: it only covers your Photos library, not video files in Finder folders, and it doesn't touch audio files or PDFs.
04Free option 2: make Spotlight useful with tags
Spotlight won't look inside a video, but it does index Finder tags and comments. For a small archive, this works:
- Select a video in Finder and press Command-I.
- Type a few words in the Comments field (“Q3 offsite, whiteboard session, pricing debate”), or add tags.
- Search those words with Spotlight (Command-Space) or in a Finder window.
Limits: you only find what you remembered to write down, and it points at the file, not the moment. Fine for 20 videos, painful for 2,000. More on that in HyperArc vs Spotlight.
05If you edit video: Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro
Final Cut Pro 12 (January 2026) added Visual Search for objects and actions and Transcript Search for spoken English. Both need a Mac with Apple silicon and work on clips after Final Cut has analyzed them in the background. Premiere Pro has Media Intelligence search, which Adobe says runs on your computer. Jumper adds similar search as a plugin for several editors. If footage already lives in one of these apps, start there. The video search apps comparison has the details and prices.
06Paid option: HyperArc, for videos in folders
Needs macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel.
- Buy a license and install the app. The download page walks through it.
- Create a Google Gemini API key in Google AI Studio and paste it in when HyperArc asks. It is stored in the macOS Keychain. The free tier is enough to try things out.
- Add the folders that hold your videos.
- Optional: pick a segment length in HyperArc's settings. The default is 2 minutes. 30, 60 or 90 seconds lands you closer to the exact moment but means more requests to Gemini.
- Let it index. Each segment is sent to Gemini's embedding API with your key, and the results are stored in a local database.
- Type what you remember: “drone shot over a beach at sunset”, “someone drawing a graph on a whiteboard”. Results show the file and time range. Click one to jump there.
Limits, honestly: indexing a large folder on Google's free tier is slow. Indexing and new searches need an internet connection. Results point to a segment, not a single frame. And HyperArc doesn't recognize specific people by face.
If what you are hunting for is something someone said, the guide to finding something said in a recording covers transcript tools too.
FAQQuestions people ask
Can I search inside videos on a Mac for free?
Yes, if the videos are in the Photos app and your Mac supports Apple Intelligence (M1 or later, macOS 15.1 or later, Apple Intelligence turned on). Type a description in the Photos search field and it can find the moment inside a video. For videos in regular Finder folders there is no free built-in way. The closest is adding Finder tags or comments by hand so Spotlight can find the file.
Why doesn't Spotlight find what's in my videos?
Spotlight indexes file names, metadata and the text inside documents. It doesn't analyze video frames or listen to the audio track, so it can only find a video by its name, tags, comments or metadata.
Do I have to move my videos into Photos to search them?
For Photos search, yes: it only searches items in your Photos library. By default Photos copies imported files into its library, which uses extra disk space. HyperArc indexes videos where they already are, in any folder you add.
How long does HyperArc take to index my videos?
It depends on how much footage you have and on your Gemini tier. Google's free tier limits how fast requests can go, so a big folder can take a while the first time. A paid Google account speeds it up. After that, new files in watched folders are indexed as they arrive, and searching itself is fast because it runs against a local database.
Does HyperArc upload my videos?
Each 2-minute segment (or whatever length you set) is sent to Google's Gemini embedding API with your own key to compute an embedding. The embeddings, the index and the search stay in a local SQLite database on your Mac. HyperArc's own servers never receive your files. The only HyperArc server handles license checks.
MORERelated pages
- HyperArc vs Spotlight. What the built-in Mac search can and can't find in your media.
- HyperArc vs DEVONthink. A document manager with transcription versus a media search app.
- Mac apps that search inside videos, compared. Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, Jumper, Photos and HyperArc.
- How to find something said in a recording on a Mac. Voice memos, podcasts and meeting recordings.
- HyperArc home page. Natural-language search for your videos, audio, photos and PDFs on Mac.
Videos in folders? Search them by describing the shot.
HyperArc indexes the folders you pick and takes you to the right two minutes. One-time price, works on up to 3 Macs, 30-day money-back guarantee.
One-time purchase. Up to 3 Macs. 30-day money-back guarantee. macOS 14 or later.