Finder doesn't find

Question

Finder doesn't find

I am absolutely baffled at what I must be doing wrong. Normally on OSX I would expect to put in a word or a phrase into the upper right window on a finder window and it would find anything with those characters. I have a program called FileZilla (a common FTP program), its in my doc. I can see, side by side, I have spelled it correctly, space and case sensitive. I'm actually searching for a update I need to install that was just downloaded, somewhere.

Finder finds NOTHING. Not the original program, not the update, not the horde of interrelated files. Settings are to search "All My Files" and "This Mac"

Normally I have been having the opposite problem. I enter a very unique phrase and get thousands of results, burying what I am looking for in non-alphabetized chaos (sorted by name) or again still NOT finding what I am looking for.

I am a loss to understand why my finder, one of the simplest processes on the Mac, doesn't work properly.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on May 6, 2013 10:31 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 23, 2017 10:53 AM in response to creativestuff

Finder has been unable to correctly perform basic search of a directory for at least the past decade. Apple should be deeply embarrassed that they continue to have basic search function broken.
It helps somewhat to force a reindexing. To do this, go into System Preferences->Spotlight->Privacy, then click +, then add a directory you want to search (could be the entire hard drive). Once you've added it, click the minus to remove it. OS X will reindex that area. At the end of this, finder will find more things, but it will still not find some things.

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Answer 2

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

May 6, 2013 11:18 AM in response to creativestuff

Try EasyFind

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Answer 3

May 6, 2013 11:32 AM in response to macjack

Good suggestion. It worked. Any explanation why the basic Finder doesn't work?

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

May 6, 2013 12:06 PM in response to creativestuff

Some information on Spotlight.

Spotlight – 5 things You Never Knew

Spotlight Adjustments

Spotlight Basics

Spotlight – Create Good Queries

Spotlight FAQ

Spotlight – Narrow Search Results

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Answer 5

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

May 6, 2013 12:11 PM in response to creativestuff

creativestuff wrote:

Any explanation why the basic Finder doesn't work?

I think it does work but it's just too complicated for me. Hey, I'm a simple guy. 😉

EDIT: Although it doesn't search everywhere and it doesn't search invisibles.

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Answer 6

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

May 6, 2013 4:20 PM in response to creativestuff

From the menu bar, select

 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Spotlight ▹ Privacy

The list of items excluded from Spotlight indexing is shown (it may be empty.) Click the plus (“+”) icon to add an item to the list. Select your volume (under DEVICES) and add it to the list. Then remove it from the list by selecting it and clicking the minus (“-“) icon.

Spotlight will rebuild the index. If you try to do a Spotlight search now from the magnifying-glass icon in the top right corner of the display, a pulsing dot will appear in the icon. When the dot disappears, the indexing is complete.

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