Comments on: Spotlight on OS X isn't finding everything

Question: Spotlight on OS X isn't finding everything

badstone — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 11:42:10 -0800

Something is badly broken in the search on my Mac. It can't find ANY zip or rar files, and it doesn't necessarily find everything matching a given query. E.g. - if I search for "pink", it finds one of 3 Pink Floyd folders and it only finds Pink Floyd tracks within one of those three folders, though a different one than the actualy folder it found! Can/should Spotlight be re-indexed? Are there any hacks to roll back to the old search? Should I just go with a 3rd party search app?

By: bac

bac — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 11:47:48 -0800

I had a similar problem that I solved by re-indexing Spotlight. The way to force a re-index is kind of non-obvious, but this worked for me:

1. Go into Spotlight Preferences and click "Privacy".
2. Click "+" to add a folder that won't be indexed by Spotlight. Add your home directory.
3. Click "-" and remove your home directory from the list.

This will have the effect of removing the index file for your home directory, and causing Spotlight to rebuild it. You might want to do this before going to bed and let it run all night, since it will slow your machine down significantly while it's re-indexing.

By: olecranon

olecranon — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:27:41 -0800

does the "best answer" mark mean that re-indexing made it all work again? In my trials here, Spotlight didn't find anything based on extension but Finder's find command did.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:26:59 -0800

Dude.... can't find Floyd. I am sooooo sorry! :(

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 17:36:01 -0800

I too am very dissappointed with my search results using Spotlight. I need to be able to search inside html and PHP files. Thank goodness for grep.

By: badstone

badstone — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:42:52 -0800

no, didn't try actually re-indexing yet, but that was the best answer. :)