Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

any better than spotlight?

C

cyberone

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 24, 2005
348
99
I created some doc folders - but spotlight doesntt index them properly.

many documents aren't indexed and excluded if I do a search for certain terms.

is there a reliable search program for data stored on my machine?

yes, did I mention that I love freewares?
 
well there is always quicksilver, although thats more of an application launcher but its worth a shot and its free. There is also one called LaunchBar 4 which you can get a free trial for.
 
under normal surcumstances does spotlight recognize .docs?

if so than you should just reindex spotlight and you should be fine

in terminal:

sudo mdutil -E /
 
adese said:
under normal surcumstances does spotlight recognize .docs?

if so than you should just reindex spotlight and you should be fine

in terminal:

sudo mdutil -E /
Click to expand...

adese - you are the man, its reindexing - takes about 3 hrs ... looks like it works! tks!
 
cyberone said:
adese - you are the man, its reindexing - takes about 3 hrs ... looks like it works! tks!
Click to expand...

hmm, still doesnt work despite reindexing ... still misses out on the same files ... som docs are indexed, some not, even in the same folder ...
 
If I recall correctly... Spotlight needs a helper for reading (parsing) documents from some programs. If the developer doesn't provide this, Spotlight is going to have problems indexing that information.

This was an issue back in the NeXT days with the Digital Librarian too.
 
I have the same problem. Spotlight doesn't find certain files by content (especially old .doc files) and also, oddly, doesn't find certain other files (bluetooth setup assistant, for example). It's unreliable enough that I don't really trust it for everyday use, which is a major disappointment because it could be one of the best things about Tiger.

oh, and all that reindexing does it causes spotlight to "forget" all my mail messages until I select them individually.
 
QCassidy352 said:
I too am trying quicksilver and finding it very impressive. But can it search within a file's contents?
Click to expand...

right, quicksilver doesnt search contents, just file names ...

what the heck could the problem be with that spotlight misses ...

think I have to wait for Google Desktop Search for mac ... spotlight just doesnt do it, what an alpha software.
 
but when I'm re-saving a document that spotlight hasn't indexed - after the re-saving its indexed ...

go figure.
 
the command
Code: 
sudo mdutil -E /
will cause a reindex of the internal volume, but what command do you need to reindex external volumes? or is it in fact, just that one. because i've got 4 x 250gb drives connected, and tis saying it's going to take 7hrs. so i'm assuming it may just do them all...
 
QCassidy352 said:
I have the same problem. Spotlight doesn't find certain files by content (especially old .doc files) and also, oddly, doesn't find certain other files (bluetooth setup assistant, for example). It's unreliable enough that I don't really trust it for everyday use, which is a major disappointment because it could be one of the best things about Tiger.

oh, and all that reindexing does it causes spotlight to "forget" all my mail messages until I select them individually.
Click to expand...

A couple of things that threw me when I started using Spotlight - when searching contents, you can only search for the beginning of words. (E.g. you won't find "Macworld" if you search the file for "world").

Also, when searching by filename, Spotlight treats capital letters like word breaks. So, if you search for "tooth", Spotlight will find a file called "BlueTooth Setup Assistant", but not "Bluetooth Setup Assistant".

Spotlight has been very unreliable for me too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back