Excluding folders from Spotlight Search (One-Time)

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Excluding folders from Spotlight Search (One-Time)

Thanks for the help. I'm searching for files that might sit ANYWHERE BUT the folder they should be in. So, say I'm looking for files named "Election'14-1," Election'14-2," "Election'14-3..." that are NOT in a folder I created called "Election'14, I want a boolean (or some method) that does this:

Find: any kind of file whose name contains "Election'14" and is NOT in the folder "Election'14.

Note: this is a one-time deal. So I don't want to change Spotlight preferences to exclude the folder. There should be a way to do this from the search line, no?

Grateful for your help-

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), Photoshop CC 2014

Posted on Nov 1, 2014 11:19 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 1, 2014 11:48 AM in response to r.benari

Yes, you should be able to do this but it's not working for me in Yosemite! Here is what should work:

1) In a Finder window, start your search in the search field "Election 14"

2) Just under the search field, click the "+" to add criteria to the search

3) Set the first pull-down in the new filter row to be "Document Container", and the second to be "is not", and then enter "Election 14" in the field

That should exclude that folder from results but does not in my case. Actually I just tried several boolean searches in Finder an many are not working as expected. Maybe a bug in the new Spotlight?

Can someone else provide the correct language for a Spotlight boolean query?

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Answer 2

r.benari Author

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Nov 1, 2014 11:58 AM in response to FishingAddict

Yeah, tried this. No go. Thanks anyway.

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