Questions tagged [search]
The act of searching for data by providing keywords which are either checked directly against contents, or against a search index in order to provide relevant results.
563 questions
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Spotlight not returning results for internal iMac drives - ".Spotlight-V100" folder has red forbidden sign
My iMac running [macOS High Sierra][2] has two SSD drives: 256GB with the OS on it and 2TB for data.
Spotlight returns zero results when doing a search on both drives. Also other apps using Spotlight ...
- 11
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Spotlight searches: exclude iCloud
On my MPB running Sonoma with "Search: This Mac "Documents"" duly displayed, all my Spotlight search results come solely from my iCloud backup.
Is there a way to force Spotlight to ...
4
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3
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662
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Why is the search field in System Settings returning no results after updating to macOS 15 Sequoia?
I have an M3 Max 16" MacBook Pro. I updated it to macOS 15.1 (from 14.7) yesterday evening.
The search bar in System Settings is no longer returning any result after updating. Typing anything in ...
- 1,674
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Search box loses focuses while typing when searching the current webpage with Safari for macOS
I am talking about the search box for searching the current webpage:
For me, this search box very regularly loses its focus while I am typing search terms, requiring me to press the shortcut again to ...
2
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Changing `locate` configuration so it indexes files in my home directory [duplicate]
I am the sole user of my macOS system (currently a Mac Mini M4 running macOS 15.1.1 Sequoia).
I would like to know if it's possible to (re)configure the builtin locate command and database to include ...
- 3,638
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How do I search a phrase in pdf? [duplicate]
I can not search a phrase in pdf in preview as the following screenshot shows, I want to search The New York Times, but apparently preview can't do that.
If I add double quotes to the phrase "The ...
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Entering text box on iPad goes into “find in page” mode in Firefox/Safari
I’m using an iPad Pro with face ID, with the Apple external keyboard, and a logi mouse.
Using Firefox or Safari, whenever I go into a text input box (like for editing this question, or using Whatsapp),...
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iCloud Mail: how to do keyword search
In iCloud Mail (web access not mail.app) I want to search and apply rules for emails with the word script in the subject though not words with script in it like subscription or prescription. I have ...
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Can't Search Within Folders on a Drive?
I have a weird Spotlight issue with one of my external drives; I can search the drive as a whole just fine, but if I try to search only a specific folder within it then the search simply doesn't work.
...
- 1,757
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How to get Spotlight working correctly on SMB mounted volumes?
We've been having this strange issue on an 18TB drive that is nearly full (1.4TB available). The larger of the two directories will apparently not stay indexed or available for search once indexed. I ...
- 1,158
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How to use AppleScript to find all emails from the same sender?
My goal is to search mail for all messages in the inbox from a sender, simply by selecting one email and enabling the script. I have succeeded in writing a script that opens all messages from a ...
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How to search or sort contacts cards for large photos or other large data?
iCloud quit syncing Contacts. Apple says I seem to have hit one or more of their limits: https://support.apple.com/en-us/103188
Maximum size of a contact card: 256KB
Maximum size of a contact photo: ...
- 2,079
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21
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How to find invisible characters in macOS Music app song tags?
I have discovered in my macOS Music app library that I have tracks/songs whose song titles include hidden special Unicode/ASCII characters. I can see this because they look like incorrect letter ...
- 2,079
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Finder search shows 0 results for searches inside user folder
It seems from a bit of research that Finder search is a frequent source of issues for people, and I have tried the standard System Settings and mdutil approaches to rebuild the Spotlight database, but ...
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How to troubleshoot why custom Finder search keeps breaking?
I use macOS 12.7.6. I have a custom Finder search (a .savedSearch) that searches a folder for files matching two criteria, Kind is Music (All) and Composer is not Example.
I set this up on an older ...
- 1,923
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I can't search in Messages on iOS anymore. How to fix it?
I haven't been able to search in Messages on my iPhone in months. When I try I get the following message: "No Results. More results will be shown once Messages finishes indexing." No advice ...
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Use Smart Folder as default Finder folder
I tried to follow the answer to Use smart folder as Finders default folder, nothing happened for me.
I'm on Mac OS Sonoma Version 14.5 (23F79) with the beta program, but my Terminal seems to just ...
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How can I efficiently search in a channel in Slack for iPad without having to type the entire channel name?
I use the Slack app on iPad. I'm browsing a channel. I'd like to search for some text inside that channel. How can I do it efficiently?
The only way I found so far is to click on the search icon on ...
- 3,616
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Desktop > Clean Up By > Size : The resulting arrangement makes no sense. Am I missing something?
If I run the action:
Desktop > Clean Up By > Size :
The resulting arrangement makes no discernible sense. Am I missing something?
I have had this problem persist through many macOS updates.
I do ...
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Exclude certain files from finder search results [duplicate]
I have a bunch of massive xml files with the extension .nml that appear every time I search for anything in the finder and crowd out the files I'm actually searching for.
I need a way of making the ...
- 298
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56
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Using Kindle app on iPad how to search my notes
Kindle service allows us to make notes as we read text and these notes synchronize to all kindle apps. Specifically I want to search MY notes, across all books in my kindle app or in 1 collection.
In ...
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How to have mdfind search system and library files
I need to write a script for many users to find where some other dependencies maybe installed. I would like to use mdfind for the Mac users to search in their /opt or /usr directories, but it seems ...
- 113
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270
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Where is the cache for Calendar.app in Sonoma? Can't find events older than the install date in Calendar.app in Sonoma
When I search for events in Calendar.app in only finds events created after I installed Sonoma. This feels very much like a cache issue. When I, a couple of times, have had similar problems in the ...
- 3,484
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Search in System Preferences pane stopped working
Since recently, searching in the System Preferences does not work any more on my Macbook Pro M1. When I enter any search string, just nothing happens, as if I hadn't typed in anything. Other users (...
- 2,050
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116
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Safari Search History for Discord username
I had an old friend on Discord and I'm attempting to find their username. I had the account but eventually got locked out of it forever, and I ended up deleting it.
Now, I want to add this person back....
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macOS Calendar search doesn't work for future events
Spotlight search finds future events, but macOS Calendar search (top right corner search field) does not.
How do I fix this?
- 225
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macOS Sonoma 14.1.2 Finder cannot search files by name in external hard disk
In macOS Sonoma 14.1.2, the Finder cannot search files by part of the file names in some folders, e.g. external harddisk.
For example, the folder contains the following files:
539366.jpg
456.jpg
789....
- 887
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Search fails to find app on iPhone
My iPhone has the app Economist installed. I can find the app’s icon. A tap to that icon launches the app.
Yet when I swipe down on the Home Screen to display the search bar, and type in the word ...
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Finder search not working - weird behavior
I have the latest version of macOS Sonoma on my MacBook Air.
I have a Word document named Pabrai Books.doc in my Documents folder.
I open Finder and start typing the name of the document in the Search ...
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1k
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How to search file contents on iOS?
Is it even possible? Like, for example, list all php files that contain the word “filter”?
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Search in finder folder doesn't work - Mac OS Ventura
I'm trying to search in finder in specific folders. The search works on ''my Mac'' or in spotlight but not in the folder in question. I've tried the spotlight-privacy trick, tried reinstalling the OS, ...
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Apple Mail: Search and smart folders no longer work
Several weeks ago, Apple Mail on my MacBook Pro M1 running Ventura suddenly no longer showed any e-mails in my smart folders (such as "Today" or "Unread"). Also, Mail's search was ...
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How to list the content of a whole drive to keep it searchable when disconnected?
I would like to keep track of what files I have on the external drives where I store everything I do not need to access every day. Still, I would like to have some way to know what drive I should ...
- 1,674
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Thousands of random files (.h, .py, .res, .str, and more) in Finder searches
To preface, I'm not a developer, and I had a MacBook Pro previously for many years which did not do this, which is why I'm looking for a solution.
Currently, whenever I search anything in Finder, I am ...
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Ventura not showing actual file name in search results
When I search for AIF audio files in Finder, it shows me the file name "utf8". This is the media title, apparently. There does not appear to be a way for Finder to show me the file name.
...
- 501
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116
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Spotlight always 1 Search Behind
Have the strangest issue on my computer. Let's say I go to Spotlight and search "ABC" -- it displays the results from the search I made previous. So now if I reopen Spotlight and search &...
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1
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473
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how to search files which contains some string in macOS
I want to search files by string in macOS, now I am using this command:
grep -r "docker/build-push-action@v2" .
this command is very slow, is there any better way to search string from ...
- 1,195
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Can Apple Mail perform a server side IMAP search (and if so, how)?
I have a dovecot IMAP server that is configured with full-text-search, including Apache Tika with OCR support. This allows me to search within attachments, including image attachments. Using dovecot ...
- 111
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2
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Problem using Numbers Regex.Extract function
I need help with the following Apple Numbers REGEX.EXTRACT formula that doesn’t return the word before a dot. Below are the text form of the arguments passed to the formula and the formula itself as ...
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215
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Safari setting to inform preferred language for Google search?
The goal is to configure my IOS ecosystem (iPad, iPhone, MacBook) to return Google searches in English. Is there a Safari setting to realize said goal?
- 3,223
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How can I determine the folder containing a file found in a Spotlight search in Ventura?
It used to be that, when I did a search in Spotlight, I could determine the folder containing the file by holding the Command key while the mouse was over the name of the file or the file was selected....
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Using Apple Music's "Up Next" feature from search
I'm using macOS Monterey v12.6.1.
In Apple Music, I can search for a term and it displays many songs that match with this term. How can I play all the songs in this list one after the other as if it ...
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How to find Couples only photos in Apple Photos
How do I search couples photos? I want to find photos that contains exactly the two people, and no one else.
When we do the following, it provides photos that has both the people, and other folks as ...
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Why didn't reverse grep work to filter out "Operation not permitted" from find results?
When I want to reverse grep the words in macOS 13.2 like this:
$ sudo find / -name "libpq.dylib" | grep -v "Operation not permitted"
find: /Library/Application Support/com.apple....
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Search on all sheets in Google Drive on iPhone
In the Google Drive app, I can search all sheets for some text. But it just lists the files containing that text. If I click on a particular spreadsheet, the spreadsheet opens, but it doesn't move to ...
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Search file content in iCloud Drive
Is there a way to search file content in iCloud Drive? For example, in Google Drive or OneDrive, when you search, you'll get results not just by name but also any PDF or Word/Docs file where the ...
- 457
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Is there a setting to fix Finder listing files that do not match the search string?
Running recent versions of macOS Finder, searching for files containing a text string, the results include some apparently-random selection of files which clearly do not include the specified string.
...
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How to find (and copy) files using a list of keywords
I have a folder with a lot of subfolders that have certificate files in pdf format in them. I have a list of certificates I want to copy.
I need to send a bunch of certificates - 66 out of 500 to a ...
- 49
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Finder search file not working, but Spotlight able to find the file
My macOS Ventura can't search any file in the Finder (top right).
I already add the folder in System Preference -> Spotlight (added) User folder.
My Spotlight can search by filename, but Finder top ...
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How to include .git folders or files from .git folders in spotlight index?
There is a very old question about excluding .git folders form Spotlight index.
Apparently macOS today by default excludes content of .git folders, since on macOS Ventura, files residing in .git ...
- 469