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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Spotlight doesn't search files it should

Spotlight doesn't search files it should
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clebin
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Cardiff, Wales
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Mar 17, 2006, 09:35 AM
 
I know how much praise Spotlight gets, but a search facility that doesn't return a full set of results is useless to me.

If somebody can provide a fix/workaround then that would be great, but it doesn't excuse it. A search, like the Mac, should "just work".

I just searched a folder of plain text (PHP) files for the word "function". 12 files were returned. I know for a fact there's 40+ files in that hierarchy (max 3 levels deep) with 'function' in. There's no reason for Spotlight to choose them and ignore the rest.

I copy the folder to my Home folder. No results returned on that one. I open up one of the files and save it. Still no results, even on the directly enclosing folder. I try that with BBEdit and skedit. Still no results. So, I go back to searching in my text-editor - it's slow but it does the job it's supposed to.

I don't care about the clever stuff - if it can't do the basics, what good is it?

Chris
( Last edited by clebin; Mar 17, 2006 at 09:42 AM. )
     
Weyland-Yutani
Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: LV-426
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Mar 17, 2006, 10:13 AM
 
Spotlight isn't very good, that is for sure. It borderlines between passable as a beta to awkwardly incompetent.

Try this app, it helps re-indexing and choosing what to index etc.

http://www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/spotlightindexer/

cheers

W-Y

“Building Better Worlds”
     
clbell
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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Mar 18, 2006, 01:10 PM
 
I wanted to recompress a bunch of jpg images to jpeg 2000 (.jp2) to save space on my MacBook. I discovered that Spotlight will not index metadata in .jp2 files. Great. I hope they add this in the next update to Spotlight. I always thought Apple was forward looking and seeing as jp2 will likely be the successor to jpg I figure they would have it covered as well.


Originally Posted by clebin
I know how much praise Spotlight gets, but a search facility that doesn't return a full set of results is useless to me.

If somebody can provide a fix/workaround then that would be great, but it doesn't excuse it. A search, like the Mac, should "just work".

I just searched a folder of plain text (PHP) files for the word "function". 12 files were returned. I know for a fact there's 40+ files in that hierarchy (max 3 levels deep) with 'function' in. There's no reason for Spotlight to choose them and ignore the rest.

I copy the folder to my Home folder. No results returned on that one. I open up one of the files and save it. Still no results, even on the directly enclosing folder. I try that with BBEdit and skedit. Still no results. So, I go back to searching in my text-editor - it's slow but it does the job it's supposed to.

I don't care about the clever stuff - if it can't do the basics, what good is it?

Chris
     
streetlightm
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Mar 18, 2006, 01:41 PM
 
butler owns spotlight (except for the part where spotlight can search inside files)

http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?t...prache=english
     
Kevin
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Join Date: Oct 2002
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Mar 19, 2006, 03:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by streetlightm
butler owns spotlight (except for the part where spotlight can search inside files)

http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?t...prache=english
Well that isn't really owning it at all.
     
   
 
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