How do I search inside PDF files on a Mac?

Open one PDF in Preview and press ⌘ F to search it. To search inside all your PDFs at once, use Finder search with "Contents", or a tool like Trawl that reads every PDF, including scanned ones with no text layer, and lets you search them by meaning.

The built-in way (free)

1. One PDF: open it in Preview and press ⌘ F.
2. All PDFs: in Finder press ⌘ F, choose "Contents", then add the filter Kind is PDF.
3. Scanned PDFs usually have no text, so Finder will not find words in them.

With Trawl

1. Type what the PDF says or is about: "invoice from the plumber".
2. Trawl reads scanned pages with on-device text recognition.
3. The result shows the line it found inside the file.

Questions

Why can't I find text in a scanned PDF?

A scan is a picture of a page. It needs text recognition (OCR) before any search can read it. Trawl does this on your Mac.

Related

• How do I find a file on my Mac when I don't remember its name?
• Can I search my Mac by meaning instead of keywords?
• How do I search inside Excel, PowerPoint, Pages, Numbers and Keynote files on a Mac?
• How do I find which zip file has a certain file in it?
• How do I search hidden files and system folders on a Mac?

Updated 2026-10-11.