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Spotlight & Finder Not Finding All Files/Folders

Hello,

My Spotlight and Finder searches doesn't find all files/folders on ML 10.8. The files are there if I browse to them manually, and I'm hoping I can fix this without a clean install.

Some things I have tried:

I've dragged the entire HDD to the Spotlight Privacy tab and removed it (to re-index).
I've checked Spotlight Preferences and everything is checked under Search Results.
I've reset the cache with the mdutil commands.
I've cleaned the system with OnyX, I've reset the ACL through recovery.
Created a new system user - the results are the same.
I've called AppleCare and they couldn't resolve it.

This hasn't been an issue until I upgraded to ML. The weird thing is, that every time I reboot the system, Spotlight/Finder will find all my files after logging in to my user account. Then after 2 minutes of being logged in, the same issue occurs again where it will only show some files. This has been bugging me, and I've done my best searching through Google and various discussions without a working resolution. Any ideas? Thanks for any suggestions.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion, 8 GB RAM

Posted on Aug 17, 2012 9:32 AM

32 replies

Jul 17, 2013 8:30 PM in response to Linc Davis

I have the same problem. And as one example, I do not see any ".doc" files in All My Files, whereas all my ".docx" files are visible. Anyone have an idea why that might be happening?

Jul 31, 2013 12:29 AM in response to kevinhe

I found that Spotlight was often not finding files when searching for words within the file (file names seemed to be OK).

I found various threads suggesting that it may be a problem with File Permissions. I use Dropbox and was concerned it may have messed up permissions after a relinking a while ago.

I tried to reset permissions from within Dropbox (under Settings), but no help.

Finally I found this EXCELLENT TIP to reset permissions from within the Repair Utility (in Mountain Lion), Not the Disk Utility, which I had not been aware of: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4549495?answerId=20421138022#20421138022

It took a little while and then Spotlight re-indexed all my files. SO FAR it seems to be working well.

THANK YOU!!

Spotlight & Finder Not Finding All Files/Folders