How to add a ‘Search in iMDB’ command to your Mac

When reading a web page or a document on my Mac, I often want to search for a film name, cast member or crew member I see in the Internet Movie Database. I’ve added a Global Quick Action that sends the selected text to the search system of IMDb.

Here’s how to add a ‘Search in IMDb’ command to the context or Services menu in Mac applications.

1. Open Automator from the Applications folder.

2. In the first dialog box, click the New Document button.

3. Choose Quick Action

4. Click the Library button in the toolbar.

5. Type shell in the search field.

6. Drag the Run Shell Script action to the grey area labelled Drag actions or files here to build your workflow

7. Paste in this shell script:

open "https://www.imdb.com/find?q=$(ruby -rcgi -e 'print CGI.escape $<.read.chomp')&s=all"

8. Save the quick action as Search in IMDb

9. Quit Automator

To use the global ‘Search in IMDb’ quick action, in applications where text can be selected control-click (or right-click) the text you want to search for on IMDb.

Alternatively, once you have selected your text, go to the application menu and choose ‘Search in IMDb’ from the Services submenu.