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IceEnclosure · May 1, 2005, 05:57 PM

I know there's lots of discussion about this.. what's one more thread?

with three internal hard drives in my machine, there's lots of area for Spotlight to cover. and after having it installed for a few days now, surely it'd know where everything is by now?

I've been manually digging thru folders for the past few days after Spotlight doesn't return a result for items I know are here. This is dumb, I don't know why this is better (at least at the moment).

Someone mentioned something about unmounting and remounting a drive to get it re-indexed. but why?? why must I do that?(dunno if that would even fix it. it DID index it initially - whatttt, did it FORGET TO INDEX A BUNCH OF STUFF? idiotic Spotlight if that's the case.

Someone please make me love Spotlight.

I had no issues with the old search that found 'everything'.

mAxximo · May 1, 2005, 06:26 PM

I had the same problem with Spotlight not indexing my other partition. It's obviously a bug, OK, let's wait for 10.4.1.

But listen to this:
I told Spotlight not to index my external Firewire drive. Good feature. BUT, I needed to search a bunch of files on that disk today so I turned its window to metal and used the Search field the same way I used to do with Panther. Not one result was returned. Not ONE. Tried the old Command-F: Nothing. This is ridiculous.

Superchicken · May 1, 2005, 11:48 PM

I haven't had a problem... but I would like the option to make spotlight more like the search in Panther for the way it appears in the Finder. I'm getting way to many results when I just want one file that I know the name of... really frustrating when looking for graphics.

IceEnclosure · May 1, 2005, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by Superchicken

I haven't had a problem... but I would like the option to make spotlight more like the search in Panther for the way it appears in the Finder. I'm getting way to many results when I just want one file that I know the name of... really frustrating when looking for graphics.

gosh, agreed.

TailsToo · May 2, 2005, 12:28 AM

Where can you go to set the preferences for indexing?

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by Superchicken

I haven't had a problem... but I would like the option to make spotlight more like the search in Panther for the way it appears in the Finder. I'm getting way to many results when I just want one file that I know the name of... really frustrating when looking for graphics.

If you Command-F, you get to see a few extra search options, which by default are set to "Date" and "Kind" (I think; I'm not at my Mac right now). You can change one of them to "Name" and then you'll only search filenames, although this really should be one of the default options as it's certainly more useful than either Date or Kind. Send Apple feedback.

As for it not indexing everything:

I'm getting that too. Spotlight seems to be deliberately not indexing /Developer/ADC Reference Library. That sucks. And the fact that it doesn't even search filenames if files aren't indexed is annoying too - it really should do a catalog search in such cases.

Hmm, I wonder if doing a "Name" search instead of just using the Finder toolbar search field would do a catalog search for an unindexed directory. I'll have to try this when I get home.

leperkuhn · May 2, 2005, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by mAxximo

I had the same problem with Spotlight not indexing my other partition. It's obviously a bug, OK, let's wait for 10.4.1.

But listen to this:
I told Spotlight not to index my external Firewire drive. Good feature. BUT, I needed to search a bunch of files on that disk today so I turned its window to metal and used the Search field the same way I used to do with Panther. Not one result was returned. Not ONE. Tried the old Command-F: Nothing. This is ridiculous.

Are you insane? You told it to not give you results from that firewire hard drive.. and if you got results from that search you'd be complaining apple didn't honor your request for secrecy.

Flash2000 · May 2, 2005, 01:14 AM

I suppose plugging in the drives again has been tried? Obvious but you never know. Maybe rename the drive and plug it in.

malvolio · May 2, 2005, 01:19 AM

Originally Posted by TailsToo

Where can you go to set the preferences for indexing?

System Preferences > Spotlight.

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 01:58 AM

Aaaaaand the results are in... and it appears impossible to search for any file in a non-indexed location in any way, shape, or form.

Originally Posted by leperkuhn

Are you insane? You told it to not give you results from that firewire hard drive.. and if you got results from that search you'd be complaining apple didn't honor your request for secrecy.

I hate to say it, but mAxximo actually has a point this time. If you elect not to index a drive, a folder, etc., the reason is most likely because you don't want the contents of the files there to be indexed. But, if you select that drive and do a search within it, you should still be able to search for filenames as long as you have permissions to view the files. It would be nice if the system would fall back on a catalog search as in Panther if you decided to search a non-indexed location.

Chuckit · May 2, 2005, 03:08 AM

Agreed. Apple's vision seems to have become a little bit too narrowly focused on Spotlight. It's a cool technology, but geez, don't make a metadata database (metadatabase?) your only way of searching.

Big Mac · 04:04 AM

Perhaps, given the fact that Apple has decided to close the door on some leading shareware with the release of Tiger, it has opened the door to other opportunities such as a substitute for regular searching.

Krypton · May 2, 2005, 04:00 AM

There needs to be a provision for just 'filenames' for content that hasn't been indexed - not finding files that are right there is ridiculous.

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 04:33 AM

Originally Posted by Krypton

There needs to be a provision for just 'filenames' for content that hasn't been indexed - not finding files that are right there is ridiculous.

I think the easiest way would be to have the "Privacy" setting only turn off content indexing - the filenames would always get indexed no matter what.

Or, it could just fall back on a catalog search...

Krypton · May 2, 2005, 04:46 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Or, it could just fall back on a catalog search...

That would be much better

Incidentally, Apple excludes /System/Library from Spotlight so that you can't find the Finder, or CoreServices etc.

Anyway, I have filed the bug "Spotlight ignores filenames of files that haven't been indexed." Radar:4104692 in the hope that someone fixes this for 10.4.1.

wataru · 06:15 AM

I've been pretty unhappy with Spotlight too. My computer has been on for days, so obviously everything's indexed, but mds and mdimport will randomly start eating my CPU for hours at a time, Spotlight sometimes refuses to give me any results for anything at all, and sometimes file selection dialogs freeze for several minutes before becoming responsive again.

This has been quite a frustrating update for me, despite the fact that I did a clean install.

Krypton · May 2, 2005, 05:26 AM

I agree very much wataru.

If only they'd test these things on actual users, they'd highlight the worst usability problems straight away. I've had a lot of problems with both Spotlight and Mail 2.

xe0 · May 2, 2005, 05:30 AM

I must agree.

I am quite disappointed with Spotlight. This issue regarding non indexed drives being incapacitated to preform a basic search is a flaw that quite frankly is ridicules. I'm surprised to see this from Apple.

Add to that- Spotlight is far from the application launcher it has been hyped to be.
One fatal flaw exists regarding the keystrokes preformed to launch an application via Spotlight.

If I key in the first characters of an application (think: Quicksilver) I expect the search results to return my application. In this instance, skype.

Instead of focusing on Skype, Spotlight chooses to pick 'Show All'
Now that is plan bad design. I don't need the bloody finder with one hundred file filters, I want to launch an App! Simple in theory... It is almost as if Apple is designing for the intellectually challenged

Or for instance, I want to load Final Cut Express

but instead of Cmd+Space+final+Enter, I have to navigate around the obstacles of files! - even though I have spotlight configured to look for Applications first and foremost... This happens time and time again.

I have sent Apple an email.. even if they don't read it- I have to try and give them feed back on a shoddy design that needs to be rectified.

For now, I have still have Quicksilver for launching apps.. but that doesn't help me for searching my non-indexed external hdd

RevEvs · May 2, 2005, 05:44 AM

Originally Posted by xe0

Add to that- Spotlight is far from the application launcher it has been hyped to be.

It was never hyped to be an application launcher. Its to find files. People seem to keep thinking its a application launcher ala Quicksilver - maybe im wrong, but I always thought spotlight was for searching for files and content.

xe0 · May 2, 2005, 06:02 AM

"Stop looking. Start finding. With Spotlight, you can find anything on your computer as quickly as you type. Search your entire system from one place: Files, emails, contacts, images, calendars and applications appear instantly."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/

RevEvs · May 2, 2005, 06:07 AM

yeah, it does this. What you seem to want is for it to favour applications, and show apps first, whereas now it shows the most relevant file depending on your search criteria.

Big Mac · May 2, 2005, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by xe0

"Stop looking. Start finding. With Spotlight, you can find anything on your computer as quickly as you type. Search your entire system from one place: Files, emails, contacts, images, calendars and applications appear instantly."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/

That's the point - it is a very broad search, so all of those things will appear. If you wish to argue that spotlight should be narrowly focusable on things like apps, then that would probably be a valid argument. But that is not what Spotlight is currently designed to do.

JLL · May 2, 2005, 06:32 AM

Originally Posted by xe0

"Stop looking. Start finding. With Spotlight, you can find anything on your computer as quickly as you type. Search your entire system from one place: Files, emails, contacts, images, calendars and applications appear instantly."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/

Key word: find

theolein · May 2, 2005, 08:52 AM

I guess I will wait with Tiger until these bugs are ironed out. Until then, it's "find" and "locate" in the terminal for me.

themexican · May 2, 2005, 09:13 AM

Seems to me Apple should have left the finder search pane with options as it was in Panther. When I search in the finder I often just want to search a folder or a drive... and left spotlight as a separate thing. I find now in the finder I'm always having to hit command-F to bring up a search that I can limit to a certain folder... it was easier in panther at least for that.

Still I love Spotlight... it's just overkill for a simple finder search.

wadesworld · May 2, 2005, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Krypton

Anyway, I have filed the bug "Spotlight ignores filenames of files that haven't been indexed." Radar:4104692 in the hope that someone fixes this for 10.4.1.

10.4.1 is pretty much already locked down, so I wouldn't count on it then.

Wade

Mr Scruff · May 2, 2005, 10:53 AM

My problem with spotlight is the performance, which isn't really as great as I'd hoped for.

An average search from the standard spotlight interface takes about ~5 seconds to return the majority of results on an iBook G4 800. Not really the iTunes style instant search that was advertised.

Also, the Finder find/smart folders features are full of severely unoptimised code, some of which result in the Finder beachballing for 30 seconds or more. It all feels very beta.

Hi I'm Ben · May 2, 2005, 11:08 AM

I'm sure with all the complaining going on it won't matter that I'm going to say Tiger doesn't randomly eat my CPU, it indexed my external drive just fine and returns results very fast. I only have a 1.2G4 iBook with a crappy 4200 RPM drive and my results comes in 1-2 seconds. I'm not sure if I blessed my personal iBook with holy water because I don't remember doing it but I think Spotlight is nice. As for the "old method" of searching, you'll have to learn the new way. It's like buying a fancy car, you can't put that cheap gas in there anymore. Once you learn how to use Spotlight correctly you'll be okay. To a totally novice user Spotlight is probably cooler and easier to use than find.

I had to help a friend of mine find files on her computer the other day over the phone, usually this could be a painful process because of misspellings or searching the wrong place or a variety of things, Spotlight made this so much easier, she had the files she needed in seconds. I believe most of you like to complain to complain rather than accept something has changed and it's NOT going back. Your copies of Tiger will sell quite nicely on ebay, uninstall and put panther (or OS 9 for those select people) back on your system and go back to old school searching. As for the bugs where Spotlight doesn't index your drives, that sucks. I'd be pissed, but most of you are just making random complaints about things that will never change.

wataru · May 2, 2005, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Hi I'm Ben

IAs for the "old method" of searching, you'll have to learn the new way. It's like buying a fancy car, you can't put that cheap gas in there anymore.

No, actually it's not. Maybe you should go back and read the criticisms of Spotlight again. The complaints are that you can't search at all on a volume that you have excluded from indexing. That is stupid. Panther could do it; Tiger should be able to as well. Like someone already said: If a volume isn't indexed, fall back to the old directory tree search. That's what it does for read-only media; why not allow that for writable media that is excluded from indexing?

I believe most of you like to complain to complain rather than accept something has changed and it's NOT going back. ... I'd be pissed, but most of you are just making random complaints about things that will never change.

********. Go take a remedial reading comprehension class. We're complaining about performance, bugs, and poor implementation. Those are not "random complaints" and they had better change.

Stradlater · May 2, 2005, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Superchicken

I haven't had a problem... but I would like the option to make spotlight more like the search in Panther for the way it appears in the Finder. I'm getting way to many results when I just want one file that I know the name of... really frustrating when looking for graphics.

kind:images

lookmark · May 2, 2005, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by xe0

I must agree.
Instead of focusing on Skype, Spotlight chooses to pick 'Show All'

Hit command-return instead of return to launch your Top Hit (instead of 'Show All'). There you go. I guess Apple still considers this something of a power-user feature.

Meanwhile... having no search feature whatsoever for drives that haven't been indexed sounds like a pretty serious oversight.

Q: how does Spotlight search networked drives? Filename search, no?

piracy · May 2, 2005, 12:00 PM

Arrrrrrggggghh.

First of all, Spotlight is NOT THE ONLY FIND MECHANISM on Tiger!

You can *still use* the conventional, e.g. filename, find by using the Find box in any Finder window, or using "Find..." (cmd-F) in the Finder.

This will still find filenames even on volumes where Spotlight indexing is disallowed, as someone was complaining about not being able to do. Spotlight's purpose is metadata searching, NOT a traditional filename find, which *still exists* separately on Tiger. (And no, if you exclude a volume from Spotlight, Spotlight shouldn't "still find names" - if you exclude it, that implies you want EVERYTHING excluded. You may not think that's what it means, but that's what it means in the context of Spotlight, period. Spotlight cannot be all things to all peoples' whims. It's supposed to be a very good tool for most people, which it is.)

Further, to those bitching about Spotlight not indexing certain directories (like the ADC Reference Library):

man mdimport

lookmark · May 2, 2005, 12:13 PM

I thought command-F is now mapped to the search field in a Finder window, which initiates a Spotlight search, albeit in a Finder window. No?

There's a meaningful difference between restricting a search on *content* of files versus restricting a search on the filenames themselves. Those are two viable (if potentially confusing to explain) choices, and easy enough to technically accomplish. Seems to me more of a thorny UI issue that Apple hasn't unfortunately worked out yet.

mAxximo · May 2, 2005, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by piracy

Arrrrrrggggghh.

First of all, Spotlight is NOT THE ONLY FIND MECHANISM on Tiger!

You can *still use* the conventional, e.g. filename, find by using the Find box in any Finder window, or using "Find..." (cmd-F) in the Finder.

Please re-read my post:

�I needed to search a bunch of files on that disk today so I turned its window to metal and used the Search field the same way I used to do with Panther. Not one result was returned. Not ONE. Tried the old Command-F: Nothing.�

It does not work.

chris v · May 2, 2005, 01:07 PM

I just mounted a remote server from my tower, running 10.3 and did a search using command+f for a folder and a file I knew to be on the tower, and it found them.

EDIT: I also did a generic search on the volume for the number '03' and it only found files with that number in the actual filename, so I think that shows it successfully searching without indexing, since it turned up no metadata references to '03'.

Krypton · 01:12 PM

Originally Posted by piracy

Arrrrrrggggghh.

First of all, Spotlight is NOT THE ONLY FIND MECHANISM on Tiger!

Command F brings up Spotlight in a Finder window. E.g searching for '680' brings up a load of images that are * x 680 amongst other things, and fails to find 'SC680.plugin' - my printer driver.

It may work on mounted volumes (i.e. initiating a catalogue search) but there is no catalogue search for files on the start up disk.

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by piracy

Arrrrrrggggghh.

First of all, Spotlight is NOT THE ONLY FIND MECHANISM on Tiger!

You can *still use* the conventional, e.g. filename, find by using the Find box in any Finder window, or using "Find..." (cmd-F) in the Finder.

This will still find filenames even on volumes where Spotlight indexing is disallowed, as someone was complaining about not being able to do. Spotlight's purpose is metadata searching, NOT a traditional filename find, which *still exists* separately on Tiger. (And no, if you exclude a volume from Spotlight, Spotlight shouldn't "still find names" - if you exclude it, that implies you want EVERYTHING excluded. You may not think that's what it means, but that's what it means in the context of Spotlight, period. Spotlight cannot be all things to all peoples' whims. It's supposed to be a very good tool for most people, which it is.)

Arrrrrrggggghh indeed! Am I the only one on MacNN who ever actually bothers to try things before making declarative statements about them? You certainly don't seem to want to bother to make sure you know what you're talking about before you go online and belittle people. If you had, you would have noticed that Command-F does do a normal Spotlight search and that it does not turn up results for folders that you have opted not to index. It doesn't even try. The spinning wheel doesn't spin, the hard disk doesn't churn, it just immediately bails out with "0 results." I've tried this several times, both before and after reading your post. Unless you really do have some sort of insider access at Apple, which I doubt, and thus are running a pre-release build of 10.4.1 which fixes this, you are completely full of BS, piracy.

Further, to those bitching about Spotlight not indexing certain directories (like the ADC Reference Library):

man mdimport

If you had read my previous posts on this topic (in the other thread), you would know why this is inadequate.

1. It doesn't work. You can mdimport -f the /Developer/ADC Reference Library folder, and it will index it. But, the Finder still seems to honor the hard-coded exclusion list anyway, and will turn up filenames only and no contents if you try to initiate a search from inside that folder. Sure, if you use the Spotlight menu in the upper right hand corner, or use the Finder search field from the root of the drive or from /Developer, it works fine, and you will get a content search. But try using the Finder search field from /Developer/ADC Reference Library or /Developer/ADC Reference Library/documentation or any other subdirectory of /Developer/ADC Reference Library, and you will get filenames only. This is really disappointing to me because part of the whole reason that I was excited about Tiger was because I anticipated being able to use Spotlight to search certain subfolders of /Developer/ADC Reference Library in the cases where the XCode search was inadequate, instead of grep which I've been using up to this point. Spotlight would be much faster and nicer than grep for this purpose... if it worked.

Apparently, you are partially right in that 10.4 does have a catalog search feature buried in its bowels somewhere, except that it only seems to actually use it in cases where Spotlight has determined with a reasonable certainty that a catalog search will definitely not be what you want.

2. Even if this did work properly, it would still be a lame workaround for a really dumb oversight in the OS. There is no reason not to index /Developer/ADC Reference Library by default. Something like /System I can understand. But developer docs are something that by nature need to be searched, and this decision completely mystifies me. Sure, I could copy the /Developer/ADC Reference Library folder to another location, where it wouldn't be part of a hard-coded exclusion list. But that would also be a workaround, and then the XCode auto-update feature wouldn't see it.
Charles

P.S. Be glad that the forum ate the first reply I wrote here. This circumstance spared you from the full brunt of my wrath.

RDJL27 · May 2, 2005, 03:26 PM

This is really for IceEnclosure, rather than for Charles, because your problem is more on Apple's end of how they wired Spotlight (I'm REALLY surprised how little user interaction there is, that's an absolutely ANEMIC preference panel). Apple really needs to take a look at how we interact with stuff that can (and aparently does) break, and make the guts accessible in some fashion.

Ok, I ran into this on Saturday, I have 3 external drives, plus my main one. The internal indexing NEVER finished due to some serious hangs I had during the first few minutes after install (I had to restart 6 times, with a 3-5 minute hang each time), so I wasn't finding many files (mostly my notes) on my main HD, which was quite shocking. At first I thought it was how Tiger, Spotlight, and Word (and in particular, Notebook files) played together, but after being confirmed that they were fine, I looked elsewhere.

Somewhere I made the connection that the hangs killed the indexing process even though it ended just find without a complaint, so I just forced a re-index of my drive. You may or may not have done this, or heard about this, but pop open the terminal and type: "sudo mdutil -E /" (without the quotes) and that will re-index the boot volume, change the "/" and you're changing the volume that is going to have it's cataloged index deleted and redone. It's a pain, and in my opinion a step backwards in terms of accessibility if you can't even force it to re-index through the GUI (SHERLOCK IN OS 9 anyone!?). Try it if you haven't, if you have... Well wow, somebody else needs to grab this.

xi_hyperon · May 2, 2005, 03:36 PM

I agree that the options for Spotlight are lacking at the moment. One shouldn't have to tinker with the terminal to re-index a drive.

Having said that, I really do like Spotlight. It's very responsive on my Powerbook, and I never get a spinning beachball during a search. I'm using it quite a bit for accessing files, and building smart folders, instead of the conventional way of accessing files in a hierarchy. I would not want to go back to the old search technology.

Mr Scruff · May 2, 2005, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by xi_hyperon

Having said that, I really do like Spotlight. It's very responsive on my Powerbook, and I never get a spinning beachball during a search.

Try the following:

1) Bring up a find window (command-F in finder)
2) Change the 'Kind->Any' to 'Kind->Others'.
3) Begin typing the name of a file format (eg jpeg) in the new text field

What happens for you?

malvolio · May 2, 2005, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by Mr Scruff

Try the following:

1) Bring up a find window (command-F in finder)
2) Change the 'Kind->Any' to 'Kind->Others'.
3) Begin typing the name of a file format (eg jpeg) in the new text field

What happens for you?

Spinning beachball for about 15 seconds, then a whole slew of search results.
So you can slow down Spotlight by deliberately giving it a bogus search command. So what?
I agree that no search results at all for excluded volumes is pretty stupid. Until Apple fixes this, there is a big opportunity for 3rd-party search apps (anybody remember Locator?).

macaddled · May 2, 2005, 05:12 PM

Unfortunately my firewire drive is already indexed, so I can't test that volume, but a mounted server (unexamined acc. to mdutil) does respond to a simple file name search in the finder find window.

theolein · May 2, 2005, 05:37 PM

Looking at this makes me think it is good not to be the new OS guinea pig. I'm really surprised that you did that Chris. You have a business that depends on your Macs working and you switch without first fully testing the new OS. Not a good idea at all, I think.

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 06:41 PM

Well, I can now definitely confirm that the blocking of /Developer/ADC Reference Library from being indexed definitely is hard-coded. As a test, I tried changing the first letter of the string "ADC Reference Library" in the /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mds binary to a 'Z' instead of an 'A', rebooted, and now I can search /Developer/ADC Reference Library normally, although I'm sure that if I ever created a folder named /Developer/ZDC Reference Library that Spotlight would be sure not to index it.

Mr Scruff · May 2, 2005, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by malvolio

Spinning beachball for about 15 seconds, then a whole slew of search results.
So you can slow down Spotlight by deliberately giving it a bogus search command. So what?

How is searching for a specific filetype a bogus search? That's one of the most obvious type of searches anyone is likely to do! And it doesn't 'slow down' Spotlight, it completely hangs the Finder for a considerable length of time.

I like Tiger overall, and I like the Spotlight tech, but the Finder interface seems more than rushed.

CharlesS · May 2, 2005, 07:23 PM

Report it. I would, but I just reported 9 different Tiger bugs, and I'm a bit tired.

chris v · May 2, 2005, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by theolein

Looking at this makes me think it is good not to be the new OS guinea pig. I'm really surprised that you did that Chris. You have a business that depends on your Macs working and you switch without first fully testing the new OS. Not a good idea at all, I think.

If you're talking to me and not another Chris, I just put it on my Powerbook to test/play with. I'm in no real hurry to upgrade the work machine, or the G5 at home. 10.4 is in "evaluation mode" on one machine for the next few weeks. Probably until at least 10.4.1.

xi_hyperon · May 3, 2005, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Mr Scruff

Try the following:

1) Bring up a find window (command-F in finder)
2) Change the 'Kind->Any' to 'Kind->Others'.
3) Begin typing the name of a file format (eg jpeg) in the new text field

What happens for you?

In that case I did get the beachball and some hard drive chugging for a few seconds, and then it changed the jpg I typed to .JPG. Not a big deal, for me at least.

kman42 · May 3, 2005, 11:08 AM

Why would you want to do a catalog search on a drive, but not an index-based search? Just curious.

I think the idea is that Spotlight is THE search system for the OS. The "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations" option under the Privacy tab in Spotlight preferences means don't search these locations ever. I believe the idea is that you don't want someone to walk up to your computer, type in 'pron' or 'passwords' and find anything. That's why it is under a tab called 'Privacy'.

You all seem to want a different additional option which is "Don't index this location, but let me search it if the old-fashioned way if I want". First of all, the Apple UI designers are thinking, "why would anyone want to perform a catalog search instead of an indexed search." Second, they are thinking, "Is this something MOST people will want to do?" Third, they are thinking, "Is this really a significant benefit?" Finally they are thinking, "How would we implement this in an EASY TO UNDERSTAND way?"

The distinction between "Don't perform an index search, but let me perform a catalog search if I have appropriate file permissions" and "Don't ever search here no matter what" is far too subtle for Apple to ever implement. Don't get your hopes up.

If you want this functionality just use 'locate' and 'find' in the terminal.

But maybe I'm missing something.

kman

CharlesS · May 3, 2005, 12:18 PM

^ Well, I had a look through the Mac Help for Spotlight, and found this:

Privacy settings apply only to Spotlight searches. You can still locate the items using the Find command in the Finder.

So, while this is not consistent with the actual behavior, apparently the intention is for the user to be able to do a catalog search if a folder or volume isn't indexed. The fact that there's a discrepancy between the documentation and the actual behavior tells me that this might simply be a bug, and that it might be fixed in an upcoming update. Hopefully.