Search won't find files I KNOW are there

How are you searching for the file? Are you using Spotlight or the Search from the Finder menu?

If you're using the search from the finder menu, it's possible you are not searching your entire computer; you may have a different location besides the computer set as your place that the computer is looking. Try going into Finder > File > Find (apple + F) > at the top of the window (underneath the white search bar area) are various places that you can search, including Servers, Computer, Home, and other files. Select Computer, type in your criteria for searching for the file. That searches your entire computer; if it doesn't find the file you're looking for, either its not there or you may have the incorrect name of the file.

SysPrefs->Spotlight->Search Results and ensure you've checked the appropriate locations. You can also modify where Spotlight searches by modifying the _rules.plist file in the hidden .Spotlight-V100 directory. A search at http://www.macosxhints.com/ should give you the details.

I have the same problem, I became aware of it after upgrading to Tiger. Files that I know exist aren't found, at first I thought it may have been the migration tool left out the files but that is not the case. Today I was searching for a file called PHONES PLAN, and 'phone' and 'plan' failed to find the file I went to a backup and found it (on a 3.9 search) and then went to the desktop in question and located the file manually. it was within my Documents directory and I did search Home and Local Disk with both Spotlight and Find.

The only thing I can think of is it is a Write Now file (which has a unique createor/ID), is there some auto-hide files from the user thing going on with Tiger like Windows has had?

The indexing—about 50 gigs of files—takes less than two minutes. Now that's hard to believe!

Quite. I suspect that the indexing wasn't completed or the index is corrupt. Restart and run the mdutil command again without doing anything else. Also, check the console and system logs, using the Console.app, for anything associated with md = metadata.

If that's your concern, then launch the Terminal app located in /Apps/Utilities/, type this command in (or copy and paste), hit the return key, enter your admin password, carefully since it won't display in the Terminal window, and hit your return key again. That should delete your index and restart indexing.

sudo mdutil -E /

Try forcing it to index by going to System Preferences>Spotlight>Privacy
Then click +
Click "macintosh HD" and press choose.
Click macintosh HD in the privacy window and click -.
That should fix your problem.
(I had similar problems, and that worked)

17" iMac 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1G DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz 160GB hard drive Mac OS X (10.4.8) iPod 5th gen with video 30GB

Thanks for the feedback. Noe, if any reply helped, mark it appropriately. Good computing.

Just started the reindex, in the meantme I've found Sherlock (on classic) does the job where spotlight fails (such as to find files by date modified or name contains).

I think it is a case where Apple is relying on something new when just the basics (look at the file tree) would suffice.

Spotlight's great power stems from its use of the Index to search file content and metadata. This is, however, also the program's Achilles' heel. When the index is incomplete or becomes corrupt (neither an especially uncommon occurrence) then Spotlight doesn't work. It won't tell you of course and the only way you find out is when, for example, you fail to find a file that you know is there.

There are lots of fixes for a bum index, most of which will work to get the program up and running again -- but one round of that may (sensibly) cause you not ever quite to trust that Spotlight is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing, namely, searching your hard drive, or at least all of the nominally indexed parts of it, for files. The solution, at least until Apple develops a fallback utility that can search in the absence of an index (Panther's cmd-F, anyone?), is Easyfind, which can be found at http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11706 . Easyfind performs filename searches without an index. It's not as fast or as elegant as the pre-Tiger OS X utility, but it's comprehensive, and more reliable than Spotlight. Spotlight can do some pretty neat tricks but when I really and truly need to find a file, I use Easyfind.

So let's see. Edward attributed his problem to a disk repair and you are still blaming Spotlight?

Well, I guess you could blame UNIX and its pesky permissions; or OS X for its occasional failure to keep all of them straight; or users who are too unsophisticated or trusting of their machines to understand that a periodic Repair Disk Permissions is a good idea. I would merely note that neither the pre-Tiger Find command nor Easyfind were ever rendered so entirely useless - or indeed affected at all - when permissions became scrambled.

Of course "blame" is rather beside the point, that being instead to my mind knowing how to reliably and comprehensively find files when, for whatever reason, Spotlight can't seem to do the job. If you have a bit of spare time when Spotlight breaks, you can spend half an hour or so trawling the forums here to track down the right combination of terminal commands and collateral fixes, and conduct your search after Spotlight has finished re-indexing; or, if you're a bit pressed you can fire up your "backup" find utility and locate the file.