[chris v]

Made a folder (a) put a file "xyz" in it. Made an alias of folder (a) and put the alias in folder (b) on another partition. Did finder toolbar search for filename "xyz" on folder (b). 0 items.

I can see the file inside the alias. Why can't the finder's search see it?

CV

[chris v]

So, is this the world's stupidest question, or what?

Or am I crazy, and this works fine for everyone else?

CV

[Fonzie]

I tried making a folder just named untitled folder and then make an alias of that.. put Unison in the alias folder- Unison was only found in the Untitled folder. But when I looked is was ofcourse also in the alias folder. Is this what you meant ?

[chris v]

Originally posted by Fonzie:
I tried making a folder just named untitled folder and then make an alias of that.. put Unison in the alias folder- Unison was only found in the Untitled folder. But when I looked is was ofcourse also in the alias folder. Is this what you meant ?

Do a search (selection) for Unison in the folder that contains the alias of "untitled folder." It'll turn up zero items.

CV

[Developer]

So the Finder doesn't search "within" aliases. It can be argued that this is the desired behavior. What you search for isn't inside the alias after all; it's somewhere else.

Also imagine you have Unison in a folder. In that folder is also an alias to hard the hard disk. That hard disk of course contains the folder with Unison and the alias to the hard disk. Search for Unison, and the search will yield an infinite number of search results. Not desirable.

[chris v]

Here's the deal-- I have a data drive (a) with archives on it dating back to 1995. They are sorted by month and year, within a folder at the root level named (astonishingly) Archives. It's beginning to fill up, but I have another drive (b) which has quite a bit of space. I want to move 1995-1999 to drive b in order to create space on drive a for the future.

Howver, I frequently perform searches on the Archives folder, and want to be able to search them all at once, with one search. I was hoping to do this by aliasing the files on drive b, but that does not work, much to my dismay.

Developer, your example of a feedback loop is a pretty good reason why this might not be good behavior, so I can live with it, since it seems to be a well-thought-out behavior instead of a bug, but what can I do to be able to perform simple searches that will turn up results on both partitions?

CV

[Developer]

Drag 199-5-1999 into the special places area of the find dialog. Drag 1999-now into the special places area of the find dialog. Check both, and do a single search.

[chris v]

Thanks! That's a new find for me. The best news is that folders dragged to that window persist in a preference file somewhere, so I won't need to drag them over and over again.

Developer gets CV's person of the day award!

CV

[lenox]

please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of said award.

[gorickey]

Originally posted by Developer:
Drag 199-5-1999 into the special places area of the find dialog. Drag 1999-now into the special places area of the find dialog. Check both, and do a single search.

Great suggestion, I appreciate that as well as I didn't know that could be done.

Thx.