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Setting up Spotlight

A

Azathoth

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 16, 2009
659
0
I've been googling without success (and getting irritated with Google increasing crappification of their search engine with instant, and now crapifying glass).

In any case I'd like Spotlight to do the following:
1. index stuff like System Preferences (so that I can find "Sharing" preference pane directly from Spotlight)
2. *not* index all the system ".c" and ".h" files

I'm not able to figure out which dirs I should exclude from Spotlight Prefs -> Privacy (nor can I find the default settings for Spotlight)
 
Azathoth said:
...and now crapifying glass).
Click to expand...
Click the magnifying glass once to turn it on, again to turn it off.
Azathoth said:
In any case I'd like Spotlight to do the following:
1. index stuff like System Preferences (so that I can find "Sharing" preference pane directly from Spotlight)
Click to expand...
Spotlight indexes files and folders, not preference pane items.
Azathoth said:
2. *not* index all the system ".c" and ".h" files
Click to expand...
You can't exclude file types, only folders and drives.
Azathoth said:
I'm not able to figure out which dirs I should exclude from Spotlight Prefs -> Privacy
Click to expand...
Why exclude anything? Just let it index everything and be done with it.
Azathoth said:
(nor can I find the default settings for Spotlight)
Click to expand...
What do you mean by "default settings"? By default, Spotlight indexes all files and folders.
 
For a start, the above answer is one of the annoying aspects of MR: everyone things they're SJ and rather than provide assistance, they "helpfully" try to convince you that you're doing it wrong

GGJstudios said:
Click the magnifying glass once to turn it on, again to turn it off.
Click to expand...

Except I have "tap to click", and clicking anywhere on the search result (which I tend to do when resting my fingers) brings up the preview image, so then I have to click to turn it off. Which is annoying (and was not a problem until Google changed the search), but I digress.

GGJstudios said:
Spotlight indexes files and folders, not preference pane items.
Click to expand...

Well my System Preference items appear when I use Spotlight (as they should)


GGJstudios said:
You can't exclude file types, only folders and drives.

Why exclude anything? Just let it index everything and be done with it.
Click to expand...

I just told you why I don't want it to index everything: I don't need to see .c or .h files...

GGJstudios said:
What do you mean by "default settings"? By default, Spotlight indexes all files and folders.
Click to expand...

Ok, I assumed there were some default settings that I had overwritten at some point.
 
Azathoth said:
For a start, the above answer is one of the annoying aspects of MR:
Click to expand...
Speaking of annoying aspects of MR, it's annoying when someone asks for help in the forum, then criticizes those who take the time to respond. If you don't want people to post suggestions, don't post the thread in the first place.
Azathoth said:
everyone things they're SJ
Click to expand...
I don't think I'm SJ. I'm perfectly well aware of who I am.
Azathoth said:
and rather than provide assistance
Click to expand...
I did provide assistance. I answered your questions.
Azathoth said:
they "helpfully" try to convince you that you're doing it wrong
Click to expand...
I said absolutely nothing about you "doing it wrong".
Azathoth said:
I just told you why I don't want it to index everything: I don't need to see .c or .h files...
Click to expand...
And I just told you that you can't exclude selected file types from indexing; only folders and drives. You can keep saying you don't want it to index certain file types, but that won't change the way Spotlight works.
:rolleyes:
 
I disagree with your glib response.

Now, returning to the issue at hand... I gave the .h and .c files as an example - these (and many, many other files) are obviously in directories. If it's not possible to exclude file types, it's definitely possible to not index certain directories. Perhaps an adventurous user has a list of directories which they've told spotlight not to index?
 
Azathoth said:
I disagree with your glib response.

Now, returning to the issue at hand... I gave the .h and .c files as an example - these (and many, many other files) are obviously in directories. If it's not possible to exclude file types, it's definitely possible to not index certain directories. Perhaps an adventurous user has a list of directories which they've told spotlight not to index?
Click to expand...

We don't know all files you want to exclude.
For .h and .c they're most likely in the Developer (or Development?) folder under your Macintosh HD (or whatever name you gave to your HD).
There's a simple way to make your list: open a finder window, search for specific files or extensions you want to exclude and at the bottom of your window, you should see the path to each file.
And note that what you call a glib response that you disagree with actually answered your question.
 
Bernard SG said:
We don't know all files you want to exclude.
For .h and .c they're most likely in the Developer (or Development?) folder under your Macintosh HD (or whatever name you gave to your HD).
There's a simple way to make your list: open a finder window, search for specific files or extensions you want to exclude and at the bottom of your window, you should see the path to each file.
And note that what you call a glib response that you disagree with actually answered your question.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was afraid it would come down to manually going through typical exclusion directories, I was hoping someone else had already done this for a bunch of typical system files, because it seems like a fairly desirable thing to do.

I'm not going to entertain the thread further with debating on the merits or the tone of individual responses, my opinions are clearly at odds with the rest of the MR universe and re-reading the responses does not change my view of the matter.

Thank you to those who contributed.
 
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