macOS Tahoe Quick Actions vs Local File Tools: What Each One Can Do

macOS 26 Tahoe gave Spotlight its biggest change in years: it can now do things, not just find them. Type "convert image" and it converts. Type "start timer" and a timer starts. Add that to the Quick Actions the Finder already had, and a Mac can do a fair amount of file work before you install anything.

So the honest question is: what is left? Here is the full picture, built-in options first.

What Spotlight actions can do with files

In Tahoe, Spotlight has a set of system actions alongside its search results. The file-related ones are:

• Convert Image. Pick an image, pick a format.
• Resize Image. Pick an image, set a size.
• Move File and Delete File.
• Markup, which opens the file in Quick Look ready to annotate.

Other actions handle timers, messages, reminders, calendar events and notes, and apps can add more through Shortcuts. After you have used an action a few times, Spotlight starts offering a short quick key for it, so "ci" might become your shortcut for Convert Image.

One thing to know: Convert Image and Resize Image in Spotlight save their output to your Downloads folder with a generic name. Fine for one picture, awkward if you are converting a batch and want them next to the originals.

What Finder Quick Actions can do

These have been around since Mojave and are still the better route for file work. Select a file in the Finder, Control-click it, and choose Quick Actions:

• Rotate Left (hold Option for Rotate Right)
• Markup
• Trim, for movies and audio
• Create PDF, from one or several selected images or PDFs
• Convert Image, choosing a format and a size
• Remove Background, for images

The same buttons appear at the bottom of the Finder’s preview pane. And you can add your own: anything you build in the Shortcuts app can be set to appear in the Quick Actions menu.

That is a solid free toolkit. If your file jobs are "rotate this", "make these photos into a PDF" or "this HEIC needs to be a JPG", you may never need anything else. We wrote a whole post on converting HEIC to JPG that starts with exactly this Quick Action.

Where the built-in actions stop

These are the jobs people actually search for that neither Spotlight nor the Finder does out of the box:

• Compress a PDF. There is no Quick Action for it. Preview can do it through File → Export → Reduce File Size, but with one fixed setting, and sometimes the file comes out bigger. More in the compress PDF post.
• Get a file under a set size. "Under 5 MB for the portal" is the real job, and nothing built in takes a target size.
• Merge or split PDFs. Create PDF combines images or PDFs into a new one, which covers simple merging. Taking pages 3 to 7 out of a PDF means Preview’s sidebar and some dragging. See merging and splitting PDFs on a Mac.
• Strip location and camera data from a photo. Preview can remove location info from one image at a time, but there is no Quick Action that removes all of it. The EXIF post has the details.
• Convert or compress video. Trim, yes. Turning a MOV into an MP4, making a video small enough to send, or making a GIF, no.
• Work on many files as one job. Some Quick Actions accept a selection; Spotlight’s image actions are built around one file at a time.

You can fill some of these gaps with Shortcuts you build yourself. People do, and it works, but you are then maintaining a small automation for each job.

What a dedicated toolset adds

Dhito is a search app for the Mac with around 50 local file tools built in. You reach them by right-clicking a search result, by selecting several files and using the selection bar, from the Tools tab, or by typing the verb, such as compress or merge, into the search box. You can also drag a file onto the window. Here is how it lines up against the gaps above:

The table cuts both ways. Tahoe rotates and removes backgrounds, and Dhito does neither. Use the built-in one for those.

The parts that matter more than the list

A long list of verbs is easy to make. What makes file tools safe to use without thinking is how they behave:

• Nothing is overwritten. Every tool writes a new file next to the original: photo.jpg stays as it was and photo-compressed.jpg appears beside it. Compare that with Spotlight putting a generic name in Downloads.
• You can chain. The new file shows up as a row at the top of the results, so you can run the next tool on it straight away. Convert a HEIC to JPG, then strip its metadata, then compress it under 2 MB, without going back to the Finder.
• Batches are honest. Select twenty files and run the tool once. If two fail, it tells you which two and why, and keeps the other eighteen.
• Undo is the Trash. The new files go to the Trash, so the Finder’s normal Put Back works even if Dhito is closed.
• Nothing is uploaded. Every tool runs on the Mac. It works offline.

Which to use when

• One image to convert or resize, or a quick rotate: the Finder Quick Action. It is free and already there.
• A few photos into one PDF: Create PDF in the Finder.
• A PDF that has to be under a size limit: a tool that takes a target size. Preview cannot.
• Photos you are about to post or send to a stranger: strip all the metadata, not just location.
• A video that is too big to send, or a MOV that needs to be MP4: something other than Quick Actions.
• Anything you do weekly in batches: either build a Shortcut and maintain it, or use a toolset that already handles batches.

Tahoe’s actions are a good change, and they are pointed in the right direction: doing small jobs on your Mac, where the file already is, instead of uploading it to a website. For a lot of people they will be enough. Dhito is for when the job has a number attached, comes in batches, or is one of the dozen things the built-in list does not cover. There is a longer comparison of the two in Dhito vs Spotlight.