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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > What Spotlight doesn't search (but should)

What Spotlight doesn't search (but should)
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poulh
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May 8, 2005, 03:01 PM
 
iChat Logs

Safari History / cache
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CharlesS
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May 8, 2005, 03:02 PM
 
/Developer/ADC Reference Library

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eggman
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May 8, 2005, 03:12 PM
 
iPhoto comments
     
msuper69
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May 8, 2005, 04:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by poulh
iChat Logs

...
It searches my iChat Logs.
     
Chazzoz
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May 8, 2005, 05:06 PM
 
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, but Spotlight doesn't search my IMAP mailbox designated as Trash, although it's all been cached to disk in ~/Library/Mail. If I recreate the account and don't designate that box as Trash, it searches it fine, but as soon as I do Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Trash, it stops finding anything in the Trash.
( Last edited by Chazzoz; May 8, 2005 at 05:07 PM. Reason: typo)
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intastella
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May 8, 2005, 05:09 PM
 
Folder names - I'd like to jump to a folder quick and/or find a file where I knew where it was but not necessarily the name
     
malique
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May 9, 2005, 05:03 AM
 
Press COMMAND while you click the filename. It will open the folder the file is in.

It won't search my entourage mails.

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Spook E
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May 9, 2005, 07:40 AM
 
iPhoto photo titles
     
von Wrangell
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May 9, 2005, 08:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by poulh
iChat Logs

Safari History / cache
It searches my iChat Logs.

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ManOfSteal
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May 9, 2005, 08:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by msuper69
It searches my iChat Logs.
Ditto.

It places them under the "Documents" results of the Spotlight window for me...
     
starman
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May 9, 2005, 08:26 AM
 
Entourage

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Superchicken
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May 9, 2005, 10:18 AM
 
my iChat logs are indexed.
     
Chris Grande
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May 9, 2005, 11:06 AM
 
My icHat logs are searched also, but as stated above they get grouped under "Documents" in earlier betas they got stuck under "Conversations" which made much more sense. I was messing with the plist files in Search.bundle and was able to get it to group the logs under "Conversations" however it only seemed to work in the Spotlight window and not the menu.
     
poulh  (op)
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May 9, 2005, 05:11 PM
 
ok... I found the iChat logs... lets get web page history in there Apple!

I've heard they are working on Entourage.

Do you think they'll add more search items in an update or will we have to wait for 10.5?
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parsec_kadets
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May 9, 2005, 05:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by poulh
ok... I found the iChat logs... lets get web page history in there Apple!

I've heard they are working on Entourage.

Do you think they'll add more search items in an update or will we have to wait for 10.5?
I'm guessing we'll have to wait until 10.5 for some of the things you're looking for. Spotlight only searches FILE meta data. Entourage doesn't work because all the e-mail is stored in a database type setup (I'm not 100% familiar with it, but that's my understanding). So all of the e-mail is in the same file. Spotlight doesn't have the power right now to dive into the file and seperate out certain bits and call that one thing, and then call other parts of the same file another thing. Another way to see this is to search for an iCal event. You'll notice that it returns the entire calendar that the event is in, not the event itself.
     
d0ubled0wn
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May 9, 2005, 06:26 PM
 
Boy, if your friends ever wanted to know what you're saying about them on iChat and they happen to jump on your Mac while you're not looking�
     
eggman
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May 9, 2005, 09:44 PM
 
I recant my earlier post. I had spent some time adding comments to my "iPhotos" shortly after installing Tiger... and didn't see any indexing of them for several days.

And then, one day, poof: the words and names I used in those comments started fetching those images within my Spotlight searches. It's interesting that it didn't happen right away... but I'm glad it happened.

Now if only I could figure out how to force OS X to rebuild bad thumbnails in the Spotlight views. Don't know how it happened, but a bunch of images are more than half gray... as if the thumbnail creation process aborted prematurely. If I look at the images in iPhoto or GraphicConverter, the images and thumbnails look fine. In Spotlight, not so much. Go figure.
     
mhodos
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May 10, 2005, 06:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by parsec_kadets
Another way to see this is to search for an iCal event. You'll notice that it returns the entire calendar that the event is in, not the event itself.
I'd like to comment on this. My iCal events show up in spotlight searches, but when clicked don't take me to the event. They will lauch iCal if it is not running, and switch to it if it is (but won't un-minimize it). I talked with the Apple guy at CompUSA, as I thought it should zoom to the event. We tried it on one of the machines at the store and it seemed to highlight and open the event like I would have expected.

How does it work for others?

Mike
     
Grrr
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May 10, 2005, 08:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by parsec_kadets
Spotlight only searches FILE meta data.
Yes, i just found this out today. Means some system files I needed to find, now cant be found without specialist utilities, that I previously didnt need with 10.3
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