How do I set the start level for a smart folder?

Question

Mark Sealey Author

Level 2

417 points

How do I set the start level for a smart folder?

Smart Folders in 10.8.2: how do I set the criteria for a Smart Folder so that I can:

start from a certain folder/at a certain depth in my ~ folder
exclude certain folders in that hierarchy

please… 'Document Container' doesn't sem to work.

Specifically, I have a group of Sibelius (notation software) files which I want to include.

They are in ~/Music/Sibelius/wanted

But so are the automatic backups which the software creates… in ~/Music/Sibelius/backups, as a matter of fact.

IOW which is the Spotlight expression that defines OS X folders?

TIA!

Posted on Mar 3, 2013 3:02 PM

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Answer 1

Mark Sealey Author

Level 2

417 points

Mar 3, 2013 3:13 PM in response to Mark Sealey

Haven't I solved this by saying that the step I missed out is to make sure I'm actually IN the folder which I want to treat as the start folder?

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,620 points

Mar 3, 2013 3:18 PM in response to Mark Sealey

The file path metadata item cannot be used in a search.

You can create a search folder by saving the search and adding it to your sidebar.

If you haven't already, go into Finder Preferences and set it to search the current folder. Then, when you start a search with cmd-f, it will be searching that folder. Add the criteria you want and save the search. However, you can't exclude folders.

You can search for Labels, so if you Label the wanted files, you could only include those.

Is there any difference to the backup files? Extension, name, or is it just the folder?

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,620 points

Mar 3, 2013 3:20 PM in response to Mark Sealey

If you want to start in the "wanted" folder, then that would work. I thought you wanted to start in the Sebelius folder. See above post for creating a search folder.

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