How to get Spotlight to stick to the folder it's in

March 15, 2009 10:15 AM

OS X Spotlight annoyance question: how to get Spotlight to stick to the folder it's in?

Since the advent of Leopard I've come to use Spotlight a lot more to easily find information on my computer, and I love it. There is one annoyance that keeps nagging at me, though: when I have a specific folder open and I type something in the search bar for that folder, Spotlight defaults to searching the entire computer and I have to click another button to make it search the folder only. Is there any way to change this behavior to make it default to the folder you're in if you search from within a Finder window (the little search bar in the upper-right corner of Finder windows, NOT the main Spotlight search on the menu bar)?

This behavior seems counterintuitive to me (if I wanted to search the whole computer instead of just the folder I was in, wouldn't I just use the main Spotlight bar on the menu bar?) and I'd like to change it if possible, but havent been able to find anything in the preferences. Googling just finds more people with the same gripe I have (some results going back to '07 with no answers, which doesn't bode well for a positive answer to this question, but I figured I'd try...)

This is OS X 10.5.6 for what it's worth.

posted by Kosh to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Read the following tip and try changing the relevant bit of XML from:

<key>CurrentFolderPath</key>
<string>/</string>

to:

<key>CurrentFolderPath</key>
<string>.</string>
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:21 AM on March 15, 2009

No go, unfortunately. Other people in the comments for that tip were asking the same question as me and couldn't figure it out either. I guess it's just impossible, and that my only recourse is to submit feedback to Apple about it and hope that they include the option in a future update. Thanks for trying.
posted by Kosh at 1:54 PM on March 15, 2009

One respondent in that tip used the . instead of the / and was successful.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:13 PM on March 15, 2009

It is annoying and counter-intuitive; I hope they fix that in Snow Leopard. In the meantime, I gave up trying to fight it and now solely use EasyFind( it's free, from the makers of DevonThink) and works the way Spotlight and Finder should work.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 5:57 PM on March 15, 2009