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Spotlight not finding files in specific folder
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: PA
Status:
Offline
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I cannot use Spotlight to find files within a specific folder.
This used to work but has not worked for quite some time.
I have rebuilt the Spotlight index countless times with no change.
Consider the following search for "Name: beer" on "This Mac", it finds "BeerCanDoMiracles.jpg" (among others) in the "Humor (2021)" directory.
Now, if I tell it to search only in the "Humor (2021)" directory, it doesn't find it.
Why doesn't this work?
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Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
Status:
Offline
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Try changing the name of the directory. Then changing it back. Manually typing in the desired name, not by copy-pasting.
Reasoning: if the directory has a non-printing character in the name, then Spotlight won't find the folder using the intended spelling. But it would find it using a global search.
I'm not sure if Spotlight will update instantly for the name change, or if it will need time, or need to rebuild that drive's index.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: PA
Status:
Offline
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This is not unique to any directory. I see this everywhere on my Mac.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: PA
Status:
Offline
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After a lot of searching and experimenting, I believe that I have finally solved my problem!
I had previously rebuilt the whole disk index without resolving the problem.
This time, I did something different first.
I went to the Finder Preferences...
and set "When performing a search:" to "Search the Current Folder".
That, alone did not fix it..
But THEN I rebuilt the entire disk index.
Now, it works! And from the finder window, I can choose whether it searches "This Mac" or some other folder name. Both cases now work as I expect them to.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: PA
Status:
Offline
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Apple's description of this Finder preference suggests that it only changes the default search location.
It appears that it also changes the Spotlight indexing.
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Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: inside 128, north of 90
Status:
Offline
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Thanks for posting the solution!
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Feb 2022
Status:
Offline
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I've lived with this (very) annoying issue for months. The Apple Genius Bar was stumped. I hope your fix solves my problem...will try tonight!
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