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mhuie · May 17, 2005, 03:28 PM

I don't know if this has discussed before, but is there a way to find files that are not indexed by spotlight? I have my backup FW drive excluded from Spotlight, but I need to restore some photos as I did a reformat/install for tiger.

Apple-F in finder uses the spotlight engine, which shows nothing if I specify my FW drive. Is there a simple way to just find files off this non-indexed drive?

I simply want to find files in my backup pictures folder that are larger then 1mb (dont want the iPhoto thumbnails).

Krypton · May 17, 2005, 05:36 PM

Short answer no.

Use Path Finder, that has a search by name option.

mAxximo · May 17, 2005, 08:16 PM

Un-be-lie-va-ble.

I expected 10.4.1 to fix this stupid mistake.

CharlesS · May 17, 2005, 08:43 PM

I filed a bug report with Apple a while ago and got a "Behaves Correctly."

I then filed another bug report pointing out that this behavior was inconsistent with the intended behavior according to the documentation, and they moved my bug report to MacHelp.

romeosc · May 17, 2005, 08:45 PM

NO Maybe X .4.2

:dragonflypro: · May 17, 2005, 11:54 PM

I am grey why you don't want SL to index it… is there a reason i am missing?

Is there a penalty/benefit to have things not indexed?

T

Hi I'm Ben · May 17, 2005, 11:56 PM

There's a program called "Highlight" that indexes folders that spotlight won't.

kcmac · May 18, 2005, 02:38 AM

Originally Posted by Hi I'm Ben

There's a program called "Highlight" that indexes folders that spotlight won't.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17992
Thanks. That's a cool app.

mhuie · May 18, 2005, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by :dragonflypro:

I am grey why you don't want SL to index it… is there a reason i am missing?

Is there a penalty/benefit to have things not indexed?

T

I don't want it to index my FW drive because I keep a backup copy of my files and rather not have 2 different entries for everything show up.

mactropolis · May 20, 2005, 03:08 AM

Is it just me or is anyone else beyond shocked that the World's Most Advanced Operating System doesn't have any graphical utility to perform something as basic as actually Finding Files? Spotlight is cool and everything, but it selectively indexes (only recent) items and misses alot, especially when you have 15 GB of MP3's, JPEG's, .MOV's, etc. Spotlight is great for indexing text-based file formats, but when it comes for finding, for eg, mp3's, the actual filename is what counts, not its contents. Even Windows 3.1 had a rudimentary Find Files program.

Is the only built-in (non-3rd party) alternative to be reduced to the command-line and perform

Code:
find . -name "Artist*.mp3"

to locate items by filename? Unimaginable.

Spotlight should function as it is currently is from the Menu bar only to find recently used and often access files (~/Documents, etc), but also have a traditional file-name based serach utility inside Finder, like literally every ohter modern OS. Another option is to have Spotlight fully index 100% of of all volumes so it can actually find everything.

CharlesS · May 20, 2005, 03:11 AM

http://bugreporter.apple.com

Or, if you don't have an ADC account:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

I filed my bug report, but they clearly don't see it as an issue. If they get lots of bug reports about this, then they will know that this is something people actually care about.

mactropolis · May 20, 2005, 03:33 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

http://bugreporter.apple.com

Or, if you don't have an ADC account:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

I filed my bug report, but they clearly don't see it as an issue. If they get lots of bug reports about this, then they will know that this is something people actually care about.

I wish it was that easy. Right now Apple is too proud of Spotlight to concede that it needs a regular Find File utility in OS X. It would mean Spotlight effectively is incompetent at its job: Finding Everything on your system. Everytime i see those flash ads highlighting Spotlight as this amazing tool that can find "anything, anywhere" on your system, I cant help but be underwhelmed by Tiger.

CharlesS · May 20, 2005, 03:40 AM

Originally Posted by mactropolis

I wish it was that easy. Right now Apple is too proud of Spotlight to concede that it needs a regular Find File utility in OS X. It would mean Spotlight effectively is incompetent at its job: Finding Everything on your system. Everytime i see those flash ads highlighting Spotlight as this amazing tool that can find "anything, anywhere" on your system, I cant help but be underwhelmed by Tiger.

Well, check out this quote from the Mac Help page for Spotlight's Privacy settings:

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

So clearly, the Finder is meant to fall back on a catalog search when a folder isn't indexed. If you file bug reports, and be sure to point out that the documentation contradicts the actual behavior, perhaps they will realize that this is a bug and fix it. Or, maybe they'll just change the docs. My guess would be that the latter is more likely if mine is the only bug report they receive, but that the former has a chance if they receive a lot of them.

tweedledum · May 20, 2005, 04:34 AM

what i do to search by "file name" is:
cmd-F in the finder, then remove one of the search criteria and change the remaining one to "Name" and enter my search string. voila! (i just wish there were a quicker way of getting there.)

or are you saying any non-indexed files will not be searched *in any way*?

cheers
phil

ShotgunEd · May 20, 2005, 07:54 AM

mactropolis and tweedledum, OS X doesn't lack a rudimentary filename search feature, rather it only works with indexed files.

This is inconsistent with the intended behaviour of the finder and the documented behaviour of spotlight. Its a bug. Instead of asking 'why would you not index such and such a drive?' we should all report it.

tweedledum · May 20, 2005, 08:31 AM

you're right! just added one of my external drives to the privacy list and get absolutely no search results no matter what search method i use (i should have tried that before my first post).

[ot] incidentally, is there a way to automatically search by file name other than the three-click method in my last post?

mactropolis · May 24, 2005, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by tweedledum

you're right! just added one of my external drives to the privacy list and get absolutely no search results no matter what search method i use (i should have tried that before my first post).

[ot] incidentally, is there a way to automatically search by file name other than the three-click method in my last post?

Yup, any non-indexed files will not be search in any way (unless you use Highlight). Thats what i'm talking about. Cmd+F in the Finder just perform's a regular Spotlight search of the index *only*, not a catalog crawl of the filesystem(s) as many expected. I posted my bug report, lets all do the same and pray Apple gets to this somtime before 10.5.

Laurence · May 24, 2005, 02:40 PM

I just tested something with spotlight and it doesn't seem to even search very well on drives that are indexed. I have my single internal drive checked to index the entire drive. I searched for apropos and found only one result somewhere deep in the developer tools when it should have also found the actual command in /usr/bin/

I did check and the file is actually there but spotlight doesn't seem to see anything that the finder marks as invisible or something. This makes spotlight very limiting. I would guess that around 70% of the OS is hidden and not indexed.

jszrules · May 24, 2005, 03:22 PM

Just curious why Spotlight doesn't look inside /Library/Printers and ~/Library/Printers, including those folders themselves ? It seems the other folders in /Library and ~/Library are found by Spotlight, so what makes the Printers folders so special? Are there any other non-hidden folders or files that Spotlight intentionally won't find? Thanks.

jszrules · May 25, 2005, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by jszrules

Just curious why Spotlight doesn't look inside /Library/Printers and ~/Library/Printers, including those folders themselves ? It seems the other folders in /Library and ~/Library are found by Spotlight, so what makes the Printers folders so special? Are there any other non-hidden folders or files that Spotlight intentionally won't find? Thanks.

bump

d0ubled0wn · May 25, 2005, 06:36 PM

Terminal.app -> man find <enter>

Maybe not the best solution but it works.

Laurence · May 25, 2005, 07:39 PM

Actually, I never seem to get acccurate results with the find command in the terminal. locate seems to be far more inclusive, but its database is only updated during the weekly(?) cron job.

CharlesS · May 25, 2005, 10:01 PM

You can update the locate database by typing this command:

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

Or, you can download Locator, which can do it with a GUI.

jszrules · May 25, 2005, 10:14 PM

Cool...will check out "Highlight" and "Locator".

So WHY doesn't Spotlight look inside /System, /Library/Printers, ~/Library/Printers, and other specific folders? Sorry to be asking a question that only people at Apple will probably be able to answer, but it seems like a really big oversight if Finder/Spotlight isn't equipped with being able to find ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

CharlesS · May 26, 2005, 12:16 AM

Unfortunately, certain folders are hard-wired not to be indexed. /Developer/ADC Reference Library is also one of these, which is insane. Fortunately, you can hand-edit /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist to override this.

JohnCoffee · May 26, 2005, 01:16 AM

Originally Posted by Laurence

I just tested something with spotlight and it doesn't seem to even search very well on drives that are indexed. I have my single internal drive checked to index the entire drive. I searched for apropos and found only one result somewhere deep in the developer tools when it should have also found the actual command in /usr/bin/

I did check and the file is actually there but spotlight doesn't seem to see anything that the finder marks as invisible or something. This makes spotlight very limiting. I would guess that around 70% of the OS is hidden and not indexed.

I think so too. Did a search yesterday on a file name and spotlight found nothing. I was shocked and thought I had deleted all the files with that name by mistake. Luckily found them all sitting in a folder on my desktop. Nothing was set to invisible or something.
Now i ask myself, why the whole folder wasn't indexed by spotlight ???
(I re-indexed my whole drive now by adding my HD to the private locations for a minute and removed it again. Spotlight indexed again the whole drive automatically)

But it really bothers me - "Find CMD-F" (before OS 10.4) a least found things when they existed, apparently spotlight doesn't all the time. So I can't trust it.

Big Mac · May 26, 2005, 01:52 AM

Maybe piracy can explain this one to us. . .

JohnCoffee · May 26, 2005, 02:23 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Maybe piracy can explain this one to us. . .

Well - this doesn't apply for me. Here is my tiger box. If you don't have any better answer - you better keep quiet.

Big Mac · May 26, 2005, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by JohnCoffee

Well - this doesn't apply for me. Here is my tiger box. If you don't have any better answer - you better keep quiet.

No, I'm not accusing you of piracy. I am referring to the member "piracy" who is rather well informed about internal Apple policies.

JohnCoffee · May 26, 2005, 02:47 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

No, I'm not accusing you of piracy. I am referring to the member "piracy" who is rather well informed about internal Apple policies.

Oh - I see. Thanks for clarification.

CharlesS · May 26, 2005, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

No, I'm not accusing you of piracy. I am referring to the member "piracy" who is rather well informed about internal Apple policies.

The last time this topic came up, he was dead wrong about it. So I wouldn't get my hopes up too high...

TETENAL · May 26, 2005, 05:02 AM

OK. I will present another opinion on it.

If you add a folder or volume to the privacy list in Spotlight preferences, so that it is not found, then Spotlight is behaving absolutely correctly when it indeed doesn't find this folder/volume and its contents.

You still want to search by file name. I argue that the file name is just file meta-data like author, comment or any other meta-data. And if files are in a search-private folder it is good that Spotlight doesn't show those named "sexy_nude_chick.jpg" regardless. That's the correct behavior.

If you want to exclude something from search add it to the private list and it is excluded from search. If you want to search something, don't add it to the private list and it is found. Simple. Consistent.

Now that Spotlight does not search volumes (like network, CD and disk images) that are not indexed for other reasons then being on the private list – at least by name – this I would consider a bug/serious shortcoming.

d0ubled0wn · May 26, 2005, 07:18 AM

Originally Posted by JohnCoffee

I think so too. Did a search yesterday on a file name and spotlight found nothing. I was shocked and thought I had deleted all the files with that name by mistake. Luckily found them all sitting in a folder on my desktop.

I noticed the same thing. I downloaded a PDF to the desktop and patiently waited 3 days for Spotlight to index the file. It never happened. So I dragged the file to my Documents folder and it immediately indexed it. That was under 10.4.0, I'm guessing the problem persists on 10.4.1.

jszrules · May 26, 2005, 02:00 PM

Completely agree with all of you that this is "insane", "can't trust Spotlight", a "serious shortcoming", etc...

CharlesS, can you please elaborate on what you meant below...what exactly should we do? (I'm not on my Mac at home right now, but I'm hoping if I make hidden files visible, this will appear.)

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Fortunately, you can hand-edit /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist to override this.

Big Mac · May 26, 2005, 05:48 PM

How long will it be before an enterprising developer restores the previous find functionality? How difficult is it to write a find utility?

JohnCoffee · May 26, 2005, 05:58 PM

I just tried to find any invisible items on my drive. Spotlight doesn't find anything at all. I assume this is wrong.
Any other user might try this?

JohnCoffee · May 26, 2005, 06:19 PM

is this a bug?
I'm looking for a folder called "Palancar". I entered the search term "car". Spotlight doesn't find it. If I enter "Pal" - the folder is found.
This works for all search terms: Spotlight just finds things that have the search term at the beginning of the word. This is weird. I start to dislike spotlight....

OreoCookie · May 26, 2005, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

I filed a bug report with Apple a while ago and got a "Behaves Correctly."

I then filed another bug report pointing out that this behavior was inconsistent with the intended behavior according to the documentation, and they moved my bug report to MacHelp.

They replied to a regular bug report??

Dale Sorel · May 26, 2005, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by mhuie

I don't know if this has discussed before, but is there a way to find files that are not indexed by spotlight? I have my backup FW drive excluded from Spotlight...

I have a file that only exists on my FW hard-drive... Spotlight found it just fine

jszrules · May 26, 2005, 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

How long will it be before an enterprising developer restores the previous find functionality? How difficult is it to write a find utility?

Hopefully Apple will do it...or either fix Spotlight.

Originally Posted by JohnCoffee

I just tried to find any invisible items on my drive. Spotlight doesn't find anything at all. I assume this is wrong.
Any other user might try this?

I think invisible items are one of those things Spotlight "isn't supposed to find", just like the other directories listed throughout this thread. Even worse is when I do a Spotlight search from the Finder with Cmd-F, and make one of my criteria: Visibility: Visible or Invisible, it STILL doesn't find some invisible items. All of this is disappointing.

Hehe, It might be good idea to have a sticky thread with all of things Spotlight isn't able to find...this way, when people download "Highlight", they know what to add. I'll start:

/System and its contents
/Library/Printers and its contents
~/Library/Printers and its contents
/Developer/ADC Reference Library
Invisible items...sometimes even when setting the appropriate Finder search criterion

Feel free to add to this list if you find anything (no pun intended).

DavidHossack · May 26, 2005, 09:32 PM

/Library/Printers and its contents
~/Library/Printers and its contents

Open the printers folder and do a search. It works fine.

This must be intentional since you don't want all the crap in that folder displayed when doing general searches for files but you CAN search the folder specifically if required (90% wont require to search these folders).

Same for the System folder

This is a well thought out feature of spotlight

CharlesS · May 26, 2005, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

They replied to a regular bug report??

They set the state of my bug report when viewing it in "My Originated Problems" to "Behaves Correctly." They also added a comment:

Hello Charles,
Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended based on the following information:

Adding a volume to "Privacy" means that no results for that volume will be returned. If you want to turn indexing off for a volume, please use mdutil -i off.

I have received replies to bug reports via e-mail in the past, though, mostly in reply to bug reports regarding the Cocoa framework. Just a while ago, I had a mini-conversation with Apple about my bug regarding the Cocoa Disc Recording docs being in /Developer/ADC Reference Library/documentation/Carbon/Reference/discrecording/.

Groovy · May 27, 2005, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by mhuie

I don't know if this has discussed before, but is there a way to find files that are not indexed by spotlight? I have my backup FW drive excluded from Spotlight, but I need to restore some photos as I did a reformat/install for tiger.

Apple-F in finder uses the spotlight engine, which shows nothing if I specify my FW drive. Is there a simple way to just find files off this non-indexed drive?

I simply want to find files in my backup pictures folder that are larger then 1mb (dont want the iPhoto thumbnails).

EasyFind and it is freeware

http://www.devon-technologies.com/pr...plications.php

mhuie · May 27, 2005, 02:06 AM

Originally Posted by Dale Sorel

I have a file that only exists on my FW hard-drive... Spotlight found it just fine

Did u read what I wrote? My FW drive is EXCLUDED from spotlight. The problem has nothing to do with spotlight. (unless you're saying that your FW drive is also excluded and spotlight found a file on it...)

jszrules · May 27, 2005, 03:10 AM

Originally Posted by DavidHossack

Open the printers folder and do a search. It works fine.

This must be intentional since you don't want all the crap in that folder displayed when doing general searches for files but you CAN search the folder specifically if required (90% wont require to search these folders).

Same for the System folder

Open the folder and search? What do you mean?

jszrules · May 27, 2005, 03:13 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Unfortunately, certain folders are hard-wired not to be indexed. /Developer/ADC Reference Library is also one of these, which is insane. Fortunately, you can hand-edit /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist to override this.

Spotlight of course wouldn't find the file you mention because the directory is hidden. So I used TinkerTool to make it visible. But even when I tried to change permissions, it reverted back and I was never able to open it. How do I access /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist? And when I do, what exactly do I change? Thanks.

DavidHossack · 01:40 PM

Open the folder and search? What do you mean

Using the finder window search box when the finder window that is open is "Printers" or "system"

CharlesS · May 27, 2005, 03:43 AM

Originally Posted by jszrules

Spotlight of course wouldn't find the file you mention because the directory is hidden.

What?! /Developer/ADC Reference Library is certainly not hidden.

So I used TinkerTool to make it visible. But even when I tried to change permissions, it reverted back and I was never able to open it. How do I access /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist? And when I do, what exactly do I change? Thanks.

You have to be root. It's easiest in the Terminal. I would not try to change the permissions as they need to be the way they are.

Your choice of:

sudo pico /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist
sudo vi /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist
sudo emacs /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist

Dale Sorel · May 27, 2005, 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by mhuie

My FW drive is EXCLUDED from spotlight.

Just curious... how did you exclude your FW drive from Spotlight?

jszrules · May 27, 2005, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

What?! /Developer/ADC Reference Library is certainly not hidden.

I meant /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist is hidden.