Sherlock (software)

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Sherlock

Sherlock 3.6, Movies channel
Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Final release	3.6.2 (179)
Operating system	Classic Mac OS 8 and 9, Mac OS X (prior to Leopard)
Type	File manager Search engine
Website	www.apple.com/lae/sherlock/

Sherlock is a now-defunct file and web search tool created by Apple for the "classic" Mac OS, and carried through to early versions of Mac OS X. Sherlock was introduced in 1998 with Mac OS 8.5 as an extension of Finder's file searching capabilities. Like its predecessor—System 7.5’s revamped 'Find File' app, adapted by Bill Monk from his 'Find Pro' find program^[1]—Sherlock searches for local files and file contents on a Mac, using the same basic indexing code and search logic found in AppleSearch. Sherlock extended the system by enabling the user to search for items on the World Wide Web through a series of plug-ins, which employed existing web search engines. These plug-ins were written as plain text files, so that it was a simple task for a user to write a Sherlock plug-in.

Sherlock was replaced by Spotlight and Dashboard in 2005 with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, although Apple continued to include it with the default installation. Since most of the standard plug-ins for Sherlock provided by Apple itself no longer function, it was officially retired and removed in the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in 2007.