Q: Turn off email search in finder search

The solution I'm used gives me zero email in Finder and Spotlight searches and all my email is searchable in Outlook.

Which solution is this? Because Im driving myself crazy with this! I have all types of crazy pictures that people have sent me in my emails. So if someone does a search on my computer....all of these inappropriate pictures from email will pop up. THIS IS CRAZY.

You mean to tell me, as advanced as Apple supposedly is, we cannot do a search without it pulling up images from email? I was able to uncheck IMAGES in Spotlight and so it wont do it with Spotlight.

But in FINDERs Seach, it pulls up all the email images! THere is no way to stop it! Why in the world doesnt apple give us something to stop this!

http://lostonroute66.com/solved-hiding-outlook-email-in-mac-os-x-finde

Hope this works.

Gene Lewis wrote:

 

... it drives me CRAZY. Mail messages contain references to nearly EVERYTHING - not sure why Apple doesn't understand this.

At the risk of repeating myself... it appears that the guys at Apple don't use their own product!

I wonder if this will get fixed in Mountain Lion? I'm really tired at staring at a wall of email messages in my Finder search results.

Philpott, I am not quite sure if we are not at crossed purposes.  The problem is that finder searches produce a lot of hits to email attachments.  You can not drag the attachments folder to the privicy tab in spotlight because of the structure of the Mail folder subfile system.

However, you can turn off the hits to the actual email messages themselves by unclicking the box in the spotlight preferences pane.

I am sure you know this though.

Yep, it's just a shame that the choice is between:

• viewing huge numbers of mail messages in Finder search results
• having search functionality in your email program

I hate having to type "-kind:mail" by default.

Surely some enterprising app developer can come up with a fix?

I do not understand.  When I uncheck the "mail message" box in spotlight preferences, finder searches do not hit mail messages only mail attachments, and the search function within Mail still works. 

Unchecking "Mail Message" in Spotlight Prefs only removes them from the initial dropdown if you search via the magnifying glass at the top right of the screen. It does not exclude Mail Messages, with or without attachments, from Finder results. Just tested again to make sure.

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!

Yeah this really *****.  You would think there would be a section in finder preferences where you could omit files from being searchable like spotlight or how you can remove files from being backed up on time capsule.

This isn't a good long term solution, but could we just delete the contents that is in the folder "Mail"?  I don't want to try it unless someone with more experience says its okay.  That would at least help a little. That folder is 8gb on my hard drive right now.

Here's what works for me:

Go to System Preferences:Spotlight:Privacy

What you want to do is add the "Mail" folder to the Privacy list. Problem is that the Library folder (containing the Mail folder) is hidden in Lion. So you go to Finder under the Go menu you pull down "Go To Folder" and type:

~/Library

The Library folder will appear, click on it and you will see the "Mail" folder. Drag that into the Privacy list. Profit!

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.

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!