how to trick search/spotlight to search everything (no exclusions)?

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Level 1

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how to trick search/spotlight to search everything (no exclusions)?

Hi,

I'm having problem understanding mac's search behaviour.

Lets say I'm looking for ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver.plist file.

I'm in ~/Library/Preferences folder but I look on "My Mac" search results, bucuse I pretend I don't know where my file is.

I hit command+f and specify "name:screensaver.pfile" - no luck

I follow a common advice regarding search and specify to include system files - still no luck.

and a proof that the file is there

What am I doing wrong are there any more exclusions? can I get rid of them?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Aug 18, 2013 3:15 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 18, 2013 3:29 PM in response to mkoza

>System Preferences>Spotlight

Be sure to include System Preference in search results for example.

Check your Privacy tab (same location) for excluded files and folders

re-indexing : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2409

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Answer 2

mkoza Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 18, 2013 4:19 PM in response to leroydouglas

no luck as well...

everything is included and there is nothing in Privacy tab.

But I think the problem is that hidden folders are not being indexed.

I created such a hierarchy:

visibleFolder

--visibleFile_in_visibleFolder

--invisibleFile_in_visibleFolder

invisibleFolder

--visibleFile_in_invisibleFolder

--invisibleFile_in_invisibleFolder

now when I search for "name:visible" I get only

visibleFile_in_visibleFolder

now when I specify to show also hidden files I get

visibleFile_in_visibleFolder and

invisibleFile_in_visibleFolder

is there any way to get also files from invisible folder?

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,638 points

Aug 18, 2013 6:44 PM in response to mkoza

There is also a File Visibility criteria, but that wouldn't prevent you from finding the plist you are referencing because it is not invisible. The enclosing folder, ~/Library is, though.

My guess is that your Spotligh Index is incomplete or corrupt. You can reindex the hard drive by adding it to the Privacy list, then removing it. You should see it start indexing.

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Answer 4

Aug 18, 2013 7:03 PM in response to mkoza

mkoza wrote:

...What am I doing wrong are there any more exclusions? can I get rid of them?

An easier way is to use EasyFInd from the App Store. It searches everywhere, including Resources in Packages in applications and in Frameworks. What it finds you can reveal in Finder. It does it in real time and is very fast, especially with an SSD. And you don't have to create inclusions and exclusions. It just won't search within files. It doesn't use an index, so it doesn't start indexing things at inconvenient times and doesn't get corrupted.

If you remember FastFind from Classic Mac days, it's like that.

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Answer 5

Aug 19, 2013 9:08 AM in response to mkoza

Items in the Library are considered "System" files. Add the criterion System files - are included.

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Answer 6

mkoza Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 19, 2013 9:38 AM in response to Barney-15E

@Barney-15E

wow you really see it...

Is your Library dir hidden as well? What OS version do you have? maybe they changed something...

Could you check what is the value of PolicyLevel in your /.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration.plist?

I was almost sure that it simply ommits hidden dirs, but I made reindexing the way you suggested (and also with mdimport -r ~/Library/Preferences and mdutil -E /) - it was indexing quite a while. Now I can see the files from my test hidden folder so it is not that.

However my com.apple.screensaver.plist is still unfindable 😟

Is there any way to check if the index is corrupted or not? I found some tip that the indexer job would consume a lot of processor then but this is not the case in my case 🙂

@FatMac\>MacPro

thanks for the sggestion EasyFind looks promising (and it has the location column!!!! 🙂 ), but it would be nicer to have spotlight working predictably....

@Jeffrey:

I'm affraid you didn't really read my question....

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Answer 7

lkrupp

Level 6

14,314 points

Aug 19, 2013 9:52 AM in response to mkoza

My personal solution was to use the free untilty EasyFind for tracking down system files and such. Spotlight is what it is and is useful for what it was designed for. Why try to force it to do something it wasn't designed to do?

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Answer 8

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Aug 19, 2013 9:55 AM in response to mkoza

Try Find Any File. It can search areas that Spotlight can't: system files, packages, invisible folders, etc. It just can't search for content of files like Spotlight can.

OT

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Answer 9

Sep 25, 2013 10:54 AM in response to Barney-15E

Sorry for bumping a month old topic but I was wondering if there's any way to get the "System files are included" rule to be on by default instead of having to add it every time I open a new search window.

And if there was any way of getting those results in the Spotlight drop-down menu as well.

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