Turn off email search in finder search

OK, I know it's also bizaar to quote oneself, but in snow leopard I always initiate a search with command-shift-F. Unfortunately, the convenience of this shortcut has been lost in Lion but there is some long-winded equivalent... yes, it's true, we have returned to the pre-10.4 dark age, but what can you do.

At the risk of repeating myself once more, it seems like the Apple developers don't use their own product, except for watching movies or sorting their holiday snaps, perhaps.

Use the Apple feedback forms guys! Remember, nobody but us reads these posts!

oxcart wrote:

Ah, OK, I agree. I never use the top right 'spotlight'. I just hit command--F or command-shift-F for a contents or a file name search.

Now that you point it out to me it does seem very bizaar. If you search using the top right spotlight tool and then ask to see all results it opens a finder window and you do see mail messages, which you do not see if you hit command-F.

The solution is clear: uncheck the 'mail message' box in spotlight prefernces and then hit command-F when you want to search. I find it much more convenient in any case.

Although it is still annoying to get 15 hits to a pdf attachment that you sent to 15 people on a mailing list. That is really bizaar!

Like I said, I can just see all the developers at Apple sitting there in fornt of their Linxu boxes!

Just to reitterate, my beef with the finder search is that athough there is a way to exclude the mail message itself (see above), you can not exclude the attachments... bizaar!

Philpott wrote:

We've all tried that. The problem is that doing this also disables searching within apps that have data stored in the Library folder, like Mail.

Please note I stated that the Mail folder is the only one I make "private." I did not include the entire Library folder. When I need to search for mail, I just look in the Mail application itself. Given that the initial problem was finding results spammed from the Mail folder, I feel this solves the problem nicely, excluding the mail and the attachments.

Here's a novel idea, APPLE...

With ctrl-F searches, there is a "+" button that allows you to select "Kind (is)" and it is usually there by default already. So, how hard would it be to allow a choice for *IS NOT* (i.e., "Kind is not" - make is/is not selectable)?!

Of course, Apple would have to add "Email" to the types for "Kind (is)"...

Also, it would be nice if you could search (or filter is/is nor) with "Kind" by a more specific file type (jpg) instead of the generic types (Application, Document, etc. - PDF is there and is a good example).

ARGH!

Otherwise, just use IMAP and never store any email locally, I guess?!

Just installed Mountain Lion. I don't think they allow you to hide Safari History items or Mail Messages from Finder window search results. (Seriously Apple, when I'm searching for something, I really don't want to have my entire Safari History trawled and dumped in front of me! If you want to find an actual file, you have to manually hide mail messages and Safari history I think...)

Apple don't read these posts, use the feedback form at

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

For me, this issue is fixed. Just follow lostonroute66's instructions. Works perfectly! Thank you!

I'm on Lion, MacBook Pro

wolfie5099 - lostonroute66's solution did not work for me. As I understand it the solution works by moving the Microsoft User Data to the user/library folder and then setting up Finder so that a new window defaults to the user main folder, and a search searches the current folder. Great, except that the user main folder still contains the MUD folder, allbeit in a different subdirectory. Result? For me Finder Spotlight still lists all my Outlook emails (olk14_message). I don't understand why it wouldn't continue to find them when using this solution. How come Spotlight in the Finder isn't finding your MUD folder but it is finding mine? I'm on Lion 10.7.4 so my User/Library folder is just as hidden as yours is.

Did you put the microsoft user data in the /library/preferences folder? This is where I put it on my machine, which is running now running mountain lion.

wolfie5099 something happened after I posted my response - the solution worked after all. For some reason it took a few minutes, and then suddenly all the email messages disappeared from the Spotlight window I had open in the Finder. I tried to edit my post but got a "down for maintenance" message from the community URL.

Anyway, yes lostonroute66's solution does indeed seem to work. You move the Microsoft User Data folder out of Documents and into the ~user/Library/Preferences folder. Office applications including Outlook still seem to work fine, but Finder can no longer display the emails because the ~user/Library/ folder is hidden. That's all I needed to do actually - the other bits about Finder Preferences don't affect the behaviour in Spotlight.

So thanks to both of you. A problem that's been bugging me for ages is now solved.

Great news!

Does anyone know how I could exclude mail messages from the Mac Mail program (as opposed to Outlook, which is discussed here)?

I'd love to clean up my Finder results!

Sure, go to spotlight panel within system preferences and uncheck the Mail check box. This will stop it returning hits to mail messages but you will still get hits to mail attachment, which is my main complaint.

That doesn't work–it does for Spotlight but not for Finder:

When I make my initial search in Spotlight, I click "Show all in Finder". When these results are displayed, they include all my mail, web history, and other useless categories. I cannot exlude any category or even move it lower in the list of results–a big nuisance.

Yes, I just tried and you are correct. I did not realize this because I always start my search in the finder by typing command-F. It is just as convenient as spotlight so why not try it for a while and see if you get used to it.

It is inexplicable why the two methods should differ. I certainly could not live with email messages in my finder search. The behavior is very strange. It seems to me that spotlight followed by 'show in finder' is sometimes flooded by email hits and other times not, depending on the search term. You would have thought that something as fundamental to the OS as this would at least work consistantly, if not sensibly!

I believe there was a solution somewhere above which involved using a different email client.

Guys this is interesting to me. I posted on this thread because my Finder searches were flooded with Outlook emails. The solution of moving the Microsoft User folder worked for that. Yet my Finders searches show no Mail results at all. None. I just tested it by searching for a string I could see in the title of an email. No results. Yet Spotlight works brilliantly within Mail itself.

I'm using Lion 10.7.4 and Mail 5.2 so I'm not sure if that's having an effect, but I've never had the problem you are having.