Sherlock, named after
Sherlock Holmes, is a file and web search tool created by
Apple Inc. for the
Mac OS, introduced with
Mac OS 8.5 as an extension of the
Mac OS Finder's file searching capabilities. Like its predecessor, it can search for local files and file contents, which it does using the same basic indexing code and search logic found in
AppleSearch. Sherlock extended the system by allowing the user to search for items through the
world wide web through a set of plugins that harness existing web
search engines. These plugins were written as
plain text files, so that it was a simple task for a user to write a Sherlock plugin.