Questions about Spotlight, a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's Mac OS X operating system.
0
votes
1answer
13 views
Why doesn't iPhoto show up in Spotlight search results?
Recently I noticed that if I do a Spotlight search (using the Spotlight menu on the menu bar), the iPhoto application is not included in the results. If I open a Finder window to the Applications ...
2
votes
1answer
32 views
Spotlight does not find file
I have the file Rprofile.site in /Macintosh HD/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/
Searching 'Rprofile.site' in Spotlight does not find the file, and I have to manually go to the folder containing the ...
0
votes
2answers
37 views
How to find files not containing comment x?
I try to find all "*.xyz" files in folder x which does not have comment "abc". This code does the opposite. I would prefer to use Spotlight if possible. How i can do this?
Thanks
do shell script ...
0
votes
0answers
9 views
What backup methods preserve kMDItemDateAdded?
The attribute kMDItemDateAdded corresponds to the "Date added" column in the Finder, and is especially useful for the Downloads directory. Unfortunately, this attribute is not part of the filesystem ...
1
vote
1answer
20 views
Auto switch input source to English when entering Spotlight, typing URL in Safari, etc
I don't have files with non-english names, and don't type non-latin URL's, so question is how to auto switch system input source in these occasions.
0
votes
2answers
231 views
Spotlight on mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion Constantly Re-Indexing
On my 4-month old mid-2012 MacBook Pro I observe that Spotlight seems to want to ALWAYS re-index. I frequently notice that the performance will get unbearably slow and I can hear the hard drive ...
2
votes
2answers
109 views
How do I use Spotlight to find all MP3 that are encoded at 320 kbps?
In order to save more space on my music collection, I want to use XLD to convert all my CBR (constant bit rate) 320 kbps MP3 to VBR (variable bit rate).
How do I use Spotlight to find all 320 kbps ...
0
votes
0answers
16 views
Is there a way to omit certain directories from where Mac OSX finds applications for its Applescript dictionaries et al?
Mac OSX maintains a list of applications for Applescript dictionaries, for the open-with list in finder etc.
This list gets collected from local directories (e.g. /Applications) but it finds as well ...
1
vote
1answer
27 views
Spotlight not indexing attachments of exchange Mail
I recently got a MBP and really love how quick spotlight is. I'm reading my exchange email via the Apple Mail app. The messages are indexed by spotlight but the contents of the attachments are not.
...
1
vote
2answers
45 views
Using mdfind to evaluate the text content of a specified file?
I would like write an applescript to evaluate whether a particular file contains a specified string (perhaps as part of an if... then statement). I want to invoke a shell command using mdfind to do ...
2
votes
1answer
38 views
Spotlight Doesn't Properly Show Preference Panes
I'm having an issue where Spotlight isn't properly showing results for System Preference panels. When I search for a preference panel by name (e.g. Sharing or Network), I don't get any System ...
6
votes
3answers
154 views
How to add folder to Spotlight “do not index”?
Is there any way to programmatically add a folder to Spotlight's "Privacy" tab?
Either through Terminal or Applescript?
Often I want to click on an item in Spotlight results in Finder, and have that ...
0
votes
1answer
32 views
Finder spotlight tool not “grepping” through all file types?
We've got this development stack that's mostly javascript, and if I'm looking for a variable definition or something I can use Finder's spotlight tool to easily find the file that contains the ...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
Spotlight for currency conversion
I know that Calculator app has ability to convert currencies but is it possible to get this shortcut in Spotlight like that:
currency 100 USD to GBP
1
vote
1answer
63 views
What's wrong with my Outlook search?
Ever since doing OS X 10.8 updates, a pair of machines with Outlook refuse to look back further than 2 weeks during e-mail searches. Spotlight settings all look OK. I even forced an index ...
3
votes
2answers
168 views
How can I do a full text search of plaintext files in my DropBox folder?
I understand that Spotlight will search the full text of files in any folder and will show files that contain instances of the searched text. But I would also like to see highlighted instances of the ...
0
votes
1answer
548 views
Spotlight doesn't work anymore in OS X Mountain Lion
I can't get Spotlight to search for any documents.
When I search the Finder for documents, nothing happens and the Spotlight search through the menu bar only shows up web searches.
0
votes
1answer
113 views
Mac - spotlight stuck on top
How do I get rid of it? It doesn't show up on task manager. It isn't dead, it responds to the mouse wheel and scrolls up and down.
Screen shot below...
0
votes
1answer
96 views
Remove all references to Parallels 7 Windows 7 VM programs
My system has been polluted with references to programs residing in a Windows 7 VM in Parallels 7.
For example, Windows programs show up in Spotlight, and in Safari settings under General->Default ...
2
votes
2answers
95 views
Spotlight Cmd+Enter to open containing folder does not work
When you type something in spotlight, highlight a result and hit Command+Enter, it should open the containing folder in finder (For reference). However, it does not work on my OSX 10.8.2 MBPR. The ...
3
votes
2answers
153 views
Have Automator add original path to Spotlight Comment for a file when moving to the trash
Is there a way to add the original path of a document as a Spotlight comment in Mountain Lion?
I have created an automator workflow that automatically adds the Timestamp and user when a file is moved ...
3
votes
2answers
93 views
Non-recursive spotlight search?
When using the Spotlight search at the top right of a finder window, I often want the search to be non-recursive, i.e. only look at files in that specific directory, not any directories within it. Is ...
1
vote
2answers
89 views
Does the search in Finder need spotlight?
I just reinstalled OS X Lion and turned off the spotlight immediately.
I noticed that search in Finder stopped working. Is this because of disabling spotlight? Is there a way to get this back without ...
1
vote
1answer
283 views
Rules for Spotlight search (on osx 10.8)
I absolutely do not understand the rules that Spotlight (osx 10.8) uses to search my files. If I enter the query sbml and select filename from the dropdown menu, these are the results that come up:
...
0
votes
1answer
3k views
How to delete email messages from Spotlight search on iPhone?
I have a iPhone 4S running iOS 6. Spotlight seems to find deleted e-mails on iPhone, how can I delete e-mails permanently from Spotlight results?
Could this potentially be a bug in iOS 6? I am ...
0
votes
0answers
79 views
Document files with incorrect date stamps
Often the document files I create, modify and save show up only to have incorrect date stamps, as if they haven't been indexed correctly (or at all). This happens with any document file type ...
0
votes
1answer
28 views
Index screenshots
I want to be able to search through text in my screenshots that I made. Prizmo does the OCR feature pretty well and also has an Automator action provided. Unfortunately, though, I have no idea how to ...
3
votes
1answer
120 views
Spotlight search iTunes Match
Back before I used iTunes Match, I enjoyed being able to search my library via spotlight. Now it seems that this doesn't work anymore. I guess this is because the music is not stored locally, but ...
0
votes
0answers
44 views
Why does “ATSFontFindFromContainer failed: count = 2” appear thousands of times in my system.log?
Just now, I looked at Console Messages and system.log in the Console application. I saw thousands of repetitions of messages like the following:
Dec 30 00:01:54 MyName-2 com.apple.quicklook[39867]:
...
0
votes
1answer
317 views
How to make Spotlight index PDF documents to search faster or on my command?
I need to search some words in many PDF documents. It worked very well when I searched over old documents but my OS X has not indexed yet the new PDFs. How can I search over the new PDFs?
3
votes
2answers
78 views
Disable dictionary results in Spotlight?
How can I remove dictionary results from Spotlight results? I've typed "chrome" into Spotlight and looked up chrome in the Dictionary one too many times, and now opening Chrome takes an extra ...
2
votes
0answers
353 views
Why can't I search files and folders on my external NTFS drive on Mountain Lion?
I have tried to re-index my external drive by removing it from Spotlight's privacy settings and putting it back there. I tried with mdutil in the terminal and I've got the following log:
bb:~ bb$ ...
0
votes
0answers
76 views
Add spotlight indexing for CSV files
On my system (Mountain Lion) Spotlight doesn't do a full-text search for comma-separated values, but I can search them with Spotlight if I rename them to .txt for example.
Is there a way that I can ...
0
votes
0answers
17 views
indexing svn repositories via spotlight
Is there a way to have spotlight index an svn repository on a Mac server?
I have thought of doing an export and indexing that, but how about indexing the repository itself?
I am aware of web-based ...
2
votes
1answer
139 views
Quicksilver and Spotlight
I have found that I need to run both Quicksilver and Spotlight. I consider this to be a waste of CPU and memory and would like to eliminate one of them probably Spotlight. The reason I would like to ...
0
votes
0answers
451 views
External hard drive not indexed by Spolight on Mac OS X Mountain Lion
I recently bought a new hard drive and it is not indexed by Finder. I tried to get it re-indexed by following this tutorial: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330114-263.html and I even tried ...
0
votes
0answers
35 views
Search across multiple OS X computers via offline indexing
A feature I would love to see in Spotlight or some other Search/Indexing application would be the ability to search multiple desktops even when they are not currently connected via AFP/Bonjour or ...
2
votes
1answer
258 views
Xcode doesn't show up in spotlight results, neither search results
I haven't noticed exactly when it happened but previously I was always using spotlight to run Xcode. Now if i'm typing "Xcode" in it, only folders containing this name show up, or some xcode projects, ...
2
votes
1answer
113 views
Is it possible to make “Look Up” appear higher in Spotlight? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How to place Dictionary definitions higher up in spotlight results
If so, how?
I happen to use Spotlight a lot for looking up definitions. Basically, I'll be reading or ...
2
votes
2answers
214 views
How to locate a file in Spotlight using folder and file name?
I often want to navigate to a file or folder that does not have a unique name. Instead, the parent folder in combination with the file or foldern name makes it unique. Here are a few examples:
I ...
0
votes
0answers
183 views
How do you fix an app icon that got associated with a file type in spotlight?
When I try and search for something using spotlight, all application results show the .c file extension icon instead of the actual app icon you would expect to see for FireFox, Safari, Mail etc. Very ...
1
vote
2answers
399 views
Spotlight: Unable to index network SMB share
I'm trying to turn on spotlight for my NAS drive. I have it mounted in OSX 10.8.2 as the following:
/Volumes/Trogdor (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by soltrain)
mdutil returns the following:
...
1
vote
1answer
153 views
Multiple languages for dictionary Look up in Spotlight
How can I handle several languages at the same time in Spotlight ?
When a word exists in several languages including english, Spotlight gives me results in english. I would like to have all the ...
1
vote
1answer
70 views
Spotlight's Privacy tab not backed up by Time Machine?
I just did a full restore from Time Machine and noticed that my Spotlight Privacy tab was empty. Am I correct in assuming that this information is not backed up by Time Machine? I believe it's stored ...
0
votes
0answers
215 views
/.fseventsd (File System Event Store) is empty?
For some reason my /.fseventsd directory (for the File System Event Store) is empty. I suspect this isn't normal, especially because the .fseventsd directory on my external drives have about 15 files ...
3
votes
2answers
268 views
Can “mdfind” search for phrases and not just unordered words?
Is there a way to search for an exact phrase using the mdfind utility? For example, I created two text documents titled "test1" and "test2". The contents of "test1" are:
I love Apple
And the ...
1
vote
0answers
78 views
“Displays” system preference not showing in spotlight
I've recently upgraded to Lion 10.7.5., though not sure if my problem is related. In spotlight, I can't get the "Displays" system preferences option to show up in the results. I've tried re-indexing ...
1
vote
1answer
227 views
How do I launch shell applications after changing shell to MacPorts bash?
I have installed a current bash version via MacPorts and changed Terminal.app to use /opt/local/bin/bash. Unfortunately shell applications won't launch from Finder and Spotlight anymore. (OSX 10.8.2, ...
0
votes
1answer
90 views
Can Spotlight show results for disconnected drives?
I have several external hard drives which I would like to search for files with Spotlight. They cannot be all connected at the same time.
How can I get Spotlight results for offline external hard ...
3
votes
1answer
777 views
Spotlight re-index every time I restart/boot iMac
I have an iMac Late 2006 with Lion installed. I don't know since when, but since 3-4 weeks ago I am having this problem.
The point is, every time I restart my iMac or boot it, Spotlight starts to ...
