Spotlight will not search External Hard Drive Files.

Question

bobbylon Author

Level 1

13 points

Spotlight will not search External Hard Drive Files.

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

1) Click Spotlight.

2) Click the Privacy tab.

3) Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.

4) Remove the item or volume you just added.

5) Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.

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I followed the above instructions but Spotlight will NOT search any files on my Go Flex External Drive. When I double click the Go Flex drive and put a query into Spotlight it always flips back to ONLY access files on This Mac

Same with the Spotlight Icon in the upper right corner on top.

I have tried ejecting the Go Flex and inserting it into another USB but still no luck

Any advice?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Oct 16, 2013 7:25 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

bobbylon Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 16, 2013 8:30 PM in response to bobbylon

Is it bad form to answer your own question. I was too impatient and dug around on the Google. Save yourself the headache. Download EasyFind.

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11076/easyfind

This is ridiculously easy. Quit banging your head against the wall trying to get Spotlight to read an external. I spent an hour rehasing the above steps to no avail. With EasyFind I could search a query of my 43,000 song Itunes library. Search "Marley". Went through those files in about a minute's time. Everything nice and hierarchival (s that a word)? in folders. Easy to navigate and find the info you need.

Wow. Problem solved

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Answer 2

shreyds9

Level 1

8 points

May 20, 2016 9:39 AM in response to bobbylon

Thanks bobbylon.....spotlight and finder are too complicated and useless... I tried to search files on USB for 2 days and it was waste of time... Apple should have user friendly features like this and not complicated mumbo jumbo of spotlight, finder

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