Unable to find files younger than 7 Days old in FINDER

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Level 3

809 points

Unable to find files younger than 7 Days old in FINDER

When I save a file I can't find it until it is about a week or so old - or so it seems.

I have just save several screen shots to my iMac to illustrate this point but I can't find them. When opening my HDD to find them (either in Desktop or a special Sceenshots folder I set up by TinkerTool) my only options are:-

Previous 7 Days

Previous 30 Days

Earlier

Same applies if I try to use the 'Find' under File in the Finder Menu bar.

Even if I use "Finder Menu/File/Find" to search -

"This Mac"

"Last opened date" is

"within last" 1 "days" -

all I get returned is the last folder(s) opened within the last 7 days. No files at all.

Something is wrong here? What have I messed up? I'm sure this was fine a while ago - may be six months ago? I've been using Macs for years. I've never come across this sort of problem before. Help would be very much appreciated please!

TinkerTool has been reset to before it was started, incidentally.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), iMac 24 Mid 2007

Posted on May 7, 2014 6:28 AM

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Answer 1

El Deanio Author

Level 3

809 points

May 7, 2014 7:04 AM in response to El Deanio

Have just tried

"Finder Menu/File/Find"

"This Mac"

"Kind" is "Any"

"within last" 0 "days"

Again I only get the Folders in which the files may have been contained rather than the files themselves!

What's going on?

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Answer 2

May 7, 2014 8:43 AM in response to El Deanio

To be sure we're on the same page, with the Desktop on the screen, can you create a new folder (right-click on the desktop), and if so, can you create a new TextEdit file and choose that folder to save it in? If you then open the folder, is it there?

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

May 7, 2014 11:36 AM in response to El Deanio

In Finder hold down the option/alt key while selecting the Go menu item. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and and com.apple.desktop.plist. Move the .plists to your desktop.

Restart and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

If the same, return the .plists to where you got it from, overwriting the newer ones.

If you want to make your user library permanently visible, run the below command in Applications/Terminal.

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

You will need to do that after any updates.

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Answer 4

El Deanio Author

Level 3

809 points

May 9, 2014 3:52 AM in response to Eric Root

Yes. That appears to work.

Thank you for your time and effort, Eric.

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

May 9, 2014 7:52 AM in response to El Deanio

You are welcome.

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Answer 6

May 9, 2014 8:05 AM in response to Eric Root

Eric Root wrote:

...If you want to make your user library permanently visible, run the below command in Applications/Terminal.

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

You will need to do that after any updates.

Another way to make libraries visible, even after updates, is to drag the library folder(s) into the Sidebar; need to go there, just click on it and you're in.

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