Hi,
No matter how frequently I reindex my Spotlight, it never seems to search my external hard drive, only the laptop itself. Is that to be expected? I'll search in spotlight for something that I *know* is on the EHD--I can see it-- and nothing will show up. Any way to improve Spotlight's indexing of the EHD or that's just not what it's made for. Thank you!
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14
Ellen Grolman wrote:
Hi,
No matter how frequently I reindex my Spotlight, it never seems to search my external hard drive, only the laptop itself. Is that to be expected? I'll search in spotlight for something that I *know* is on the EHD--I can see it-- and nothing will show up. Any way to improve Spotlight's indexing of the EHD or that's just not what it's made for. Thank you!
Spotlight, the automatic file index and search utility on your Mac, automatically indexes files on external drives for searching. ...
Verify click the "Privacy" tab at the top of the Spotlight window, that the external drive is not excluded. This list displays all of the locations that Spotlight is prohibited from searching.
If it is not there you can try dragging it there, and then removing it—to jump start an index.
Use Spotlight on your Mac - Apple Support
Ellen Grolman wrote:
Hi,
No matter how frequently I reindex my Spotlight, it never seems to search my external hard drive, only the laptop itself. Is that to be expected? I'll search in spotlight for something that I *know* is on the EHD--I can see it-- and nothing will show up. Any way to improve Spotlight's indexing of the EHD or that's just not what it's made for. Thank you!
Spotlight, the automatic file index and search utility on your Mac, automatically indexes files on external drives for searching. ...
Verify click the "Privacy" tab at the top of the Spotlight window, that the external drive is not excluded. This list displays all of the locations that Spotlight is prohibited from searching.
If it is not there you can try dragging it there, and then removing it—to jump start an index.
Use Spotlight on your Mac - Apple Support
I fully understand how to start the re-indexing and have done it multiple times. My issue is that Spotlight only successfully indexes the laptop and not the external hard drive. As I noted in my original post: "I search in spotlight for something that I *can SEE* is on external hard drive and nothing will show up in Spotlight--this is after re-indexing.
Question about Spotlight on MacBook Pro and External Hard Drive
