First thing I thought when I was planning this post was am I crazy? True enough, installing a desktop search for my Mac would be the last thing I would have on my mind. Sure, I use Google Desktop extensively on my two PC computers–one laptop and one desktop. I like the way I’m able to search for files across the two computers using Google Desktop on either. But on my Mac, there’s always Spotlight. But then again, I thought why limit myself to just what OS X Tiger has to offer? Maybe Google has something better (aside from the multiple-computer indexing). So I thought I’d take the plunge.

My first consideration was my computer’s processing power. I’m sure newer Macs like MacBooks, MacBook Pros, new iMacs, Mac Pros, and the like would have no trouble carrying the extra load that Google Desktop would have. But I’m using an old (but trusty) PowerBook, so it’s likely Desktop would eat up some precious resources. I have a fast desktop and laptop, and look what Google did to those (especially during indexing).

But still, curiosity got the best of me, so here I am.

Here’s the Google Desktop for Mac homepage. Looks nice. You know how much Mac users love eye candy. So I downloaded the DMG file, and here’s what I get after opening:

Ah, so it’s not one of those apps I can simply drag into the Applications folder and run any way I like (this means Google Desktop is a more complicated app that will install some files onto the preferences folder, and strew itself all over my hard drive. Sigh.

And then here’s Google’s installer informing me of the status of the installation. Wait, are those other Google apps on my system? Google knows what I’ve installed so far. So much for privacy.

Okay, so much for the installation. Now for the real test: the results.

Immediately after installation, Google Desktop launches itself and displays an icon on the dock. You can activate the search balloon by tapping the Apple/CMD key twice. It’s reminiscent of the similar Google Desktop Search balloon on Windows.

I try a couple of searches, and I get decent results. Remember that Desktop is still indexing. I was able to get results for preferences and a few documents on the first try.

On a side note, I wonder how large the index will take on my hard drive. And one thing different from the Windows version, the Mac version doesn’t tell me the progress of indexing in terms of percentage (like it does on the PC). I don’t know what percent of my data has been indexed. I only know how many files have been indexed so far.

After a few minutes, I tried comparing results with Spotlight. Of course, Spotlight was able to give me more documents (including PDF files, which Google Desktop wasn’t able to show). However, I liked how Google Desktop was able to include Gmail conversations and present snippets of text from the results.

Settings for Google Desktop Search for Mac are quite straightforward, and these can be found via the System Preferences panel under the Other row. These are also easily accessible by clicking Preferences on the Google Desktop Search balloon.

On the first page, you have the basics. You can key in your Gmail login information, so Desktop will also index your emails. It’s good to note that Google will not index items in your Spotlight privacy list.

On the second page, you have more detailed options.

I could never figure out how to change the shortcut sequence to a repeating key sequence, though. I’ve changed mine to Option-Space (since Spotlight is CMD-Space, Google Desktop is now just one key away; by the way, Quicksilver’s default shortcut key is Ctrl-Space).

A few minutes into indexing, and I’m still getting relatively high CPU loads from Google Desktop. Again, I’m on a relatively old Mac, so your results may be different.

What I think of Google Desktop Search for Mac

I still have to play with Google Desktop Search more, but my initial impression is that it’s a good complement to Spotlight. I’m not sure if the index on the Mac will span across computers, like Google Desktop does on the PC. And I sure miss the Desktop Gadgets that go with the Desktop Search for Windows application (then again who wants more resource hogs on top of Dashboard?).

Still, Desktop has its advantages and disadvantages, and these are mostly compared to Spotlight.

Pros

• Can search Gmail.
• You can read Gmail offline.
• It’s relatively quick.
• One word: snippets. I do hope Spotlight gets to have that feature (in Leopard, maybe?).
• You get that familiar Google search page when you click the See all results link.

Cons

• Spotlight does a better job at organizing and filtering searches (spotlight lets you filter by date, document type, kind, and people).
• Will eat up some of your resources.
• Likely to eat up some hard drive space for the index and email cache, too. Google says Desktop will eat up anywhere from 1 to 4 Gigabytes of space. Ouch.
• The Mac version doesn’t allow for spanning searches, meaning you cannot get search results for items on your other computers.
• Requires Mac OS X 10.4+. Desktop Search could have made for a good search interface in lieu of Spotlight, for pre-Tiger Macs, but Desktop Search won’t run on them!

I guess the hard drive space issue is one I would really be concerned about (old Mac and all). I do hope Google lets users define a maximum space for the cache. But I’ll keep Desktop so I can play around more and possibly give more insights in the near future.

Does anyone else have good or bad things to say about Google Desktop for the Mac? We’d love to hear from you.