It happens every now and then that I need to know which Logic projects contain a certain audio file.
If you’re not afraid of the terminal, the following command will do that for you:
find . -type f -name "ProjectData" -exec grep -a "Your Audio Filename" {} +The dot in this command is the starting directory for this search – when you first open the terminal it will open to the home folder of the user that you’re loggen in as.
If you want to be specific: only type “find” and a space and then drag and drop a folder from Finder into the terminal window, that will add the complete path to that folder as the search starting directory, then type (or copy/paste) the rest of the command and hit enter.
What’s happening under the hood?
Most of the files Logic uses are binary files that look like gibberish to humans. A standard search usually skips these because it can’t “read” the text inside. By using the -a flag with grep, we force the computer to treat that binary blob as plain text. This allows the command to scan through the code and pick out the human-readable filepaths and filenames hidden inside your project data without you ever having to open Logic.