Can I make a symlink (to a .app folder) in Applications directory show up in spotlight?

In the Finder, press CommandShiftG for Go to the Folder. Type /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.3-61/ and press return. Select the file (actually a folder) MacVim.app Press CommandL for Make Alias. Depending on permissions, you may be prompted for an administrator password here.

Press CommandN to create a New Finder Window. Press CommandShiftA to go to the Applications folder in that window.

Drag the newly created alias from the window in which it was created to the window containing the Applications folder. Rename the alias so it no longer ends in " alias".

The alias method did not work for me. A better option is to use Automator to create an Application that runs a shell script:

Also, linking directly to the MacVim.app in the Cellar directory like some of the other answers suggest binds you to a specific version. If brew upgrades MacVim, your link will still point to the old version. Rather, you should use:

open /usr/local/opt/macvim/MacVim.app $@

as this location is automatically symlinked by brew to the most recent version.

This worked great for me. I save the Automator file in iCloud so I can conveniently add the app on other machines.

The way I've solved this is using a shell script and appify.

For example make a script with a text editor that contains

#!/bin/bash

/usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.3-61/MacVim.app

Then get appify - http://git.abackstrom.com/appify.git

Run appify on the shell script and it will make an application you can put in /Applications that will invoke MacVim. This will show up in spotlight.

To keep things nice and scriptable, you can use osascript to run a little AppleScript and create your alias automatically.

osascript <<END

  set macvim to POSIX file "/usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.3-61/MacVim.app" 
  set applications_folder to POSIX file "/Applications"

  tell application "Finder"
    make alias file to macvim at applications_folder
  end tell

END