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Searchlight fails to find files on my Mac


Good evening,

I am trying to find a file on my MAC (OS 10.14) using Searchlight. It seems to pull up hundreds of files which have no likely connection to the search phrase.

So to make sure I am doing it correctly, I open my documents folder and pick a file. I type the name with extension exactly as it shows in the Finder: Cost Estimates.xls. It comes back with no Excel files but it picks up two Word documents. For example, one was "What is due diligence.doc" I opened it in Word and of course both cost and estimates were in the text. But I want to find it in a file title.

Clicking "Show all in Finder" finally turned it up at the bottom of a long list of files under a category of "Other"

So are there any tricks to limit the search to get a smaller result set?

Thanks for any help. This is really frustrating.

Hugh


MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 20, 2019 6:45 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 21, 2019 2:06 PM

You need to accompany your search with operators that can steer your search results.


kind:excel AND name:cost


will find any Excel .xls/.xlsx document whose actual filename is, or contains, the word cost. On the otherhand,


cost Estimates.xls


will search all of your selected Spotlight Search Results categories for a match, including internal document text, and the result count could be staggering. When you have a filename, or a text string punctuated by space, you want to enclose the string in double quotes, so both parts are not searched independently:


name:"cost Estimates".xls


See also: Narrow your search results on a Mac

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 21, 2019 2:06 PM in response to Hugh Piercy

You need to accompany your search with operators that can steer your search results.


kind:excel AND name:cost


will find any Excel .xls/.xlsx document whose actual filename is, or contains, the word cost. On the otherhand,


cost Estimates.xls


will search all of your selected Spotlight Search Results categories for a match, including internal document text, and the result count could be staggering. When you have a filename, or a text string punctuated by space, you want to enclose the string in double quotes, so both parts are not searched independently:


name:"cost Estimates".xls


See also: Narrow your search results on a Mac

Searchlight fails to find files on my Mac

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