Questions about Spotlight, a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's Mac OS X operating system.
27
votes
8answers
17k views
How to stop OS X from writing Spotlight and Trash files to memory cards and USB sticks?
When plugging a USB stick into a Mac, OS X creates a number of hidden files on the stick, including a Spotlight index and Trash folder.
Example from the terminal for a USB stick "Untitled":
$ ls -a ...
24
votes
3answers
4k views
How to place Dictionary definitions higher up in spotlight results
I used to use spotlight fairly frequently to quickly look up words in a dictionary. With Lion, I've noticed that my dictionary results have dropped down much lower in the list of results:
I'd like ...
18
votes
11answers
39k views
How to fix slow Spotlight and Time Machine after upgrading to 10.7.5?
Since updating to 10.7.5 both Spotlight and Time Machine are very slow.
To index a normal system drive Spotlight calculates to need several days.
As a result Time Machine takes up to an hour or more ...
13
votes
3answers
2k views
How do so set “date added” metadata in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
The Finder in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion shows a new piece of file metadata, "Date Added," which tracks the date an item was added to a folder. After upgrading to 10.7, none of the items in my ~/Downloads ...
11
votes
6answers
10k views
Why does Spotlight keep reindexing my system after updating to Lion?
Since I installed Lion, the Spotlight database keeps reindexing (which is taking several hours). It does this at least every second day.
Are any other users experiencing this problem with Lion (i.e. ...
8
votes
3answers
6k views
How do I disable Spotlight?
How can I disable Spotlight completely on Mac OS X Lion?
It's using up a lot of resources and I never really use it, so I want to disable it.
The only feature I might want to keep is the icon in the ...
8
votes
5answers
8k views
Searching by file name (as opposed to name and contents) in Lion
In earlier versions of OSX, when you search in a Finder window, it gave you the choice of searching by contents or file name. In Lion this choice seems to have disappeared, I can only search by ...
8
votes
4answers
2k views
Can I make a symlink (to a .app folder) in Applications directory show up in spotlight?
I used brew to install MacVim and it put it in /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.3-61/MacVim.app
I would like to be able to go to spotlight and type MacVim to launch the app. I tried creating a symlink in ...
7
votes
5answers
7k views
Spotlight reports “Indexing and searching disabled” in Lion
Lion keeps "losing track" of Spotlight information. Directories and Applications disappear, full text searches stop working, etc. I seem to need to re-index it once a week or so.
However, now it ...
7
votes
5answers
4k views
Spotlight in upper right screen corner in Mountain Lion
In the System Preferences panel for Spotlight in OS X 10.8, it claims "Spotlight is located at the top right corner of the screen". On my system, this no longer appears to be true; the Notification ...
7
votes
1answer
8k views
Spotlight indexing appears stuck, what can I do?
My Spotlight index got corrupted, preventing me from searching messages in Mail.app. I added my HD to Spotlight's privacy list to delete the index. I then removed it from the privacy list so Spotlight ...
7
votes
5answers
608 views
How can I create a Saved Search that excludes a specific folder from the results?
I'm trying to set up a Saved Search of my Mac that will exclude files in a folder called 'XYZ' from the search results. The reason is because I'm getting a ton of false positives from that folder that ...
7
votes
1answer
938 views
How to ensure that spotlight indexes my entire drive?
Spotlight, is a fantastic tool. Took some years, but now I use the command line tools and it's awesome. However today, I found that spotlight does not index /System (!) I'd like spotlight to index ...
6
votes
5answers
4k views
How Can I Search A Specific Type of File in Mac?
Is there any way to search a specific type of file using Spotlight? I remember there was a special command or something that I had to put in front of the search phrase but I cannot remember it now.
...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
Can you get SL “Today” folder behavior in Lion?
Snow Leopard had a default smart folder called "Today". This folder was awesome! All "Open" dialog boxes could easily display all of the files you've worked on "Today" (which are probably the ones you ...
6
votes
1answer
85 views
Indexing words separated by underscores
When searching using Spotlight for, say, the word "Exotic", it fails to report the file Important_Exotic_Class.h, containing a C++ class by that name.
Can you think of a method to make Spotlight ...
6
votes
1answer
866 views
Why does my Spotlight index get corrupted?
Recently I have been having an issue where at least once a month my Spotlight index gets corrupted, and I can no longer search the content of mail in Mail.app. I can fix the problem by taking my HD ...
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 ...
5
votes
4answers
2k views
Why would you choose Alfred over Spotlight?
Mac OS X is already loaded with Apple Spotlight, why use Alfred?
What does Alfred bring to the table that Spotlight doesn't?
5
votes
2answers
4k views
Removing spotlight icon from menu bar persistently
I tried to remove spotlight form the menu bar with the following trick:
sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search
killall SystemUIServer
Unfortunately if I ...
5
votes
1answer
2k views
Adding tags to files in OS X: How to use, where are tags stored, and will they work on a network?
I've heard it is possible to add tags to a file's meta data in OS X, and have Spotlight search through such tags.
In a nutshell, how would one access this feature in Finder – not Spotlight ...
5
votes
1answer
318 views
Make Spotlight indexing use less CPU?
Whenever spotlight begins indexing my files, my computer's fan starts spinning like crazy. Is there any way to essentially tell spotlight that it doesn't need to finish as quickly as possible, and ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
How to disable Developer and Web Searches in Spotlight?
Yesterday I upgraded to Lion and it seems it got some additions on Spotlight - the Developer and Web Searches groups.
Sadly I couldn't find a way to disable them. There isn't an option in the ...
5
votes
1answer
243 views
Applications Don't Show Up in Spotlight
Spotlight has stopped showing any results for my Applications. I've tried reindexing and removing the index so it rebuilds it. No change. I've tried adding Applications to the Privacy tab and removing ...
5
votes
3answers
2k views
How do I make Spotlight stop indexing my Backup drive?
I have a 2TB external drive I use for Time Machine. At random intervals, it will decide to spin up and my entire UI freezes until it's finished. This is incredibly annoying.
It appears that this is ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How can I set Spotlight metadata to files?
I am looking for a command line utility (I need to use it in a script) that can set Spotlight metadata to files.
5
votes
1answer
210 views
Why is mdfind only returning my most recently accessed files?
I've imported most of a javascript code base via mdimport (using the packaged SourceCode.mdimporter provided by Xcode) and it succeeds. However, mdfind only ever returns to me at most two results, ...
4
votes
6answers
1k views
Spotlight is broken on my main partition in OS X 10.7.4
Not long after updating my main OS X installation from Snow Leopard to Lion, Spotlight stopped working on that partition, and I'm desparately trying to get it working again. It will find no files for ...
4
votes
5answers
5k views
Lion not searching SMB volume
I just upgraded to Lion on my work computer and it seems like Spotlight doesn't index SMB volumes. This used to work for me perfectly under Snow Leopard. I've talked with Apple and they said it was ...
4
votes
2answers
203 views
Is there a way to provide a sort order to an mdfind query?
In trying to get a list of all music files from a particular album using mdfind I see that the files aren't necessarily returned in any order. I'd prefer album/track order if possible, but can't find ...
4
votes
1answer
888 views
Spotlight, infinite indexing, secondary drives, and NAS
I have several Mac OS X 10.5.8 editing bays, each with at least one additional internal drive, most sized 500GB-1TB. All Macs are also sharing a NAS Isilon cluster 100TB (nfs mount) for shared media ...
3
votes
5answers
275 views
How useful is spotlight?
Personally, I am happy with Spotlight in the sense I just use it for finding something. But, I'm also not happy with Spotlight, as I sometimes feel it slows down my Mac pretty much. Even, I can find ...
3
votes
2answers
270 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
325 views
Limit Spotlight to mail
The thing is I hate Spotlight like every software burning my cpu for no reason when I am working and I could put my cpu to better use BUT it is required to search in mail bodies with Mail so I still ...
3
votes
3answers
291 views
Spotlight loses index of Applications
When I get warnings that my HD is nearly full (Macbook Air, 64GB SSD), spotlight always loses its index of applications. That means that I can't launch Safari or Mail or other apps, which is the only ...
3
votes
2answers
162 views
Removed Spotlight, now there's a gap I can't get rid of
I disabled and removed spotlight from my menubar to save performance and space. Now except for saving some space, I have a gap in my menu-bar I'd like to get rid of:
Anyone an idea how to get it ...
3
votes
2answers
285 views
Can I use Spotlight to search for files by name?
My most common search pattern is to search for files based on their name. When I try this in Spotlight (cmd-space) it rarely works. Is there a way to make Spotlight search for file names, and to place ...
3
votes
1answer
109 views
Search a phrase using Spotlight
I find Spotlight very very useful, however I would like to be able to search for documents that contain a given phrase, i.e. words appearing together, instead of anywhere in a document. Do you know of ...
3
votes
1answer
566 views
How do I open a file from Spotlight in Finder?
When I search for something e.g. a PDF file, in Spotlight and has i displayed in the search results list. How can I open the file in Finder? If I click on it, the file is opened e.g. in the pdf ...
3
votes
4answers
1k views
Is it possible to run commands from spotlight?
I run commands in terminal a lot and i'm wondering if it is possible to run the commands from spotlight. For example in spotlight would like to run the command(because i have a lot of network ...
3
votes
2answers
94 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 ...
3
votes
2answers
171 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 ...
3
votes
4answers
291 views
If I use LaunchBar can I disable Spotlight?
If I use LaunchBar can I disable Spotlight? Does LaunchBar do all of its own indexing and never use the Spotlight database? Or does it rely on the Spotlight database for some of its search ...
3
votes
1answer
239 views
Delaying spotlight indexing to avoid the fan noise
I am attending a meeting in a quiet room where everyone has a soft voice, and my mac decides to index for spotlight (the job is 'mds'), bringing the fan to 6200rpm. It's not too bad, just a bit ...
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
1answer
609 views
Is “All My Files” slow because of my git and svn repos?
All My Files is often painfully slow, long beach ball spins when I open a new finder window.
The thing is I actually like it... and I'm wondering if perhaps it's because of all my GIT and SVN repos ...
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
2k views
Why is OS X indexing *again*?
For some reason, OS X thinks it's a good idea to reindex my entire hard drive (which takes it a few hours) about twice a week. This is really getting annoying, especially since it does this on ...
3
votes
1answer
207 views
How to add Spotlight comments to the bundled OS X apps?
I'd like to add a Spotlight comment to TextEdit.app. Is that possible?
What I've done:
Open Finder
Browse to /Applications/
Select TextEdit
Press ⌘ + I (Get Info)
Click the lock icon to unlock the ...
3
votes
1answer
121 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 ...
