A Little Finder Help Please

[Gryz]

New to Mac, recently bought a '11 MBP running Lion.

I am trying to get used to searching for files and folders but don't understand the difference or why I am seeing what I do.

I click All My Files on the left hand side of Finder, then at the top, I see This Mac and All My Files again.
If I search for an excel spreadsheet I saved out of my email, it shows up once. Right in my Documents - So far so good.

Now, if I click This Mac, and search for the same file, I see about 12 of the same document, and the original one in my Documents. Are these other 12 duplicates because Finder found them in my email, such as my Inbox and Trash??? If not, why are they showing up?

Driving me crazy - Thanks!

 

[GGJstudios]

When you attach a file to an email, it makes a copy of the file. If you see the same file repeated in Finder search results, it's because there are multiple copies of that file. In Finder click View > Show Status Bar. Then when you click on a file in search results, the path to that file is shown at the bottom of the Finder window.

 

[Gryz]

Oh great thank you! If I delete the messages in my mail that the files are attached to, will they also be removed from my finder? And how come email only show up in This Mac and not All My Files?

 

[GGJstudios]

Oh great thank you! If I delete the messages in my mail that the files are attached to, will they also be removed from my finder? And how come email only show up in This Mac and not All My Files?

When you search, start by going to the folder you want to restrict your search to, such as your Documents folder. Then when you search, at the top you'll see the choices "This Mac" (your whole computer) and "Documents" (restrict the search to this folder and its sub-folders).