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I like how Lion gathers everything in All My Files.

I often use it to download and post pictures without thinking where exactly they are saved (Desktop, Downloads, whatever).

However it really annoys me that Music is displayed above Pictures, and therefore I have to go through my entire music library just to get to the pics.

I'd love to completely remove Music from All My Files because it only messes up the organization and doesn't help at all. Is this possible?

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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Given that the results of “All My Files” smart search respects Spotlight Preference Pane's search results, if you uncheck or drag music below pictures, that order is respected.

I infer this, because I have music disabled in Spotlight and I don't see music in my “All My Files”.

I see PDF, Images, Spreadsheets, Developer and Documents (in that order). Which more or less mirrors what I have in my Spotlight: (considering that the canned search doesn't look for contacts, apps, etc.)

enter image description here

You will need to log off and on again for changes to take effect.

NOTE: I don't use All My Files anyway, I have it removed from my finder Sidebar

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Thank you! I don't like editing system files, and anyway my changes got reverted. Your solution works and seems the natural way to do this in Lion. – Dan Abramov Oct 28 '11 at 14:31
Great! Editing system files is often a bad idea. This is a much better solution than the one I offered, if it works for you. – Daniel Lawson♦ Oct 28 '11 at 15:39
Glad it worked for you guys :) – Martín Marconcini Oct 28 '11 at 16:38
up vote 5 down vote

All My Files is basically a Smart Folder with a custom icon, prepositioned in the Finder sidebar. So you can easily change or replicate its functionality to suit your purposes.

You can either make a new Smart Folder (⌥⌘N or File→New Smart Folder) and add it to your Finder sidebar, or right click on All My Files and choose Edit Search Criteria. While testing this, the editing seemed a bit buggy, so I'd suggest making a new Smart Folder instead.

Whichever way you choose, you want to edit the search parameters to match this screenshot: Smart Folder search

To get the second and third lines, option-click on the "+", it will turn into "…" and give you the advanced options.

To get the sorting in a new folder to match that of All My Files, goto View→Arrange by→Kind (or of course set it however you prefer).

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Initially this worked but soon afterwards I lost my customization. (You were right editing is buggy.) Martin's answer is the way to go. – Dan Abramov Oct 28 '11 at 14:28
Did you try making a new Smart Folder rather than editing the built-in All My Files? – robmathers Oct 28 '11 at 23:11
No I didn't. The reason is I didn't want to trouble myself copying the icon (I know it's easy but it didn't want to refresh on the sidebar, and I didn't care enough to log off/on to see if it worked). It also adds some confusion that Finder preferences would still list “default” All My Files (in my case, it would need to be unchecked so I don't have them both). To sum up, I see this approach a little more Linux-minded, while Martin's is a more “OS X way” if I may use this expression. – Dan Abramov Oct 28 '11 at 23:34
up vote 4 down vote

The All My Files search appears to be saved at /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/MyLibraries/myDocuments.cannedSearch. One should always be cautious modifying System files, but one might be able to modify the search query in this file to exclude Music files.

enter image description here

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Great, great find. It might be worth editing this and setting some sort of reminder to check it when I update the OS. Thank you Daniel! – bmike♦ Oct 28 '11 at 14:35
Note that the system might overwrite your changes with the default file. It did for me. – Dan Abramov Oct 28 '11 at 23:36
Did the overwrite happen on an update, or during normal use? – Daniel Lawson♦ Oct 29 '11 at 1:51
It happened during the normal use. – Dan Abramov Nov 7 '11 at 8:54

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