Search does not work on EL Capitan

I edited a file and wanted to attach to an email but then I could not remember where I'd saved it. So I clicked on ALL MY FILES and typed the file name but it does not come up!??? So I had to go to the original file and edited as I did initially to find out which location it had been saved. I've looked at the threads with similar problems but it suggests another app to be downloaded which I don't want to do. This is such a basic feature which worked perfectly fine in the older version and now has been more of a difficulty and very frustrating.