Finder doesn't find anymore

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Level 1

7 points

Finder doesn't find anymore

In the past, I've used Finder to find large files, say, anything over 10mb, so I can delete unnecessary ones and clean up my disk. I'll set the criteria as "Size" "is greater than" "10" "mb". However, in the last month or so, it no longer works. When I do a search, it doesn't find anything. The status at the bottom says "Searching This Mac" and stays that way forever. In the past, it started listing files immediately. Anybody have any idea what could be wrong?

I'm running Mac OS 10.5.8. Latest software updates always applied. Thanks.

Rob

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Feb 3, 2013 11:41 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Feb 3, 2013 12:04 PM in response to robroper

Hi Rob, sounds like Spotlight is messed up, which we could work on, but...

Find Any File...

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

Hold Option or alt key when selecting Find to Find All.

Search for Size> is Greater than> 10 mb

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Answer 2

robroper Author

Level 1

7 points

Feb 3, 2013 2:34 PM in response to robroper

I figured it out myself. Awhile back, I noticed that the Mac would seem to hang, and I couldn't do anything. Activity Monitor showed me the cause of the problem was a program called mdworker. I did some research on the web, and found out that mdworker is part of a program called Spotlight. I never used Spotlight, never even heard of it, and didn't see any use for it, since we have Finder. So I followed the steps to disable it.

I re-enabled Spotlight, and that fixed the Finder problem. So apparently Finder relies on Spotlight for the Find function. It doesn't need it for the normal file managing purposes.

I guess I'll just have to put up with Spotlight/mdworker hanging my system occasionally.

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