How do I search for files in OS X Lion?

[Sean1218]

Spotlight (regular, or in finder) doesn't seem to find anything I'm looking for. I just want to be able to search through the system and library files on a partition, but they just don't show up in any searches. I can go to the folders directly, and see that the files I'm trying to search for are right there.

I'm really just looking for something like this http://www.voidtools.com/ but on a mac.

 

[samh]

Spotlight (regular, or in finder) doesn't seem to find anything I'm looking for. I just want to be able to search through the system and library files on a partition, but they just don't show up in any searches. I can go to the folders directly, and see that the files I'm trying to search for are right there.

I'm really just looking for something like this http://www.voidtools.com/ but on a mac.

Check in your Spotlight Preferences in System Preferences that the appropriate locations are enabled. Also, what folder are these files in that are not being found? Does it work for a file in your Documents folder, for example?

 

[Young Spade]

Spotlight (regular, or in finder) doesn't seem to find anything I'm looking for. I just want to be able to search through the system and library files on a partition, but they just don't show up in any searches. I can go to the folders directly, and see that the files I'm trying to search for are right there.

I'm really just looking for something like this http://www.voidtools.com/ but on a mac.

You can open up a finder window, and then type in the search field there and get results; try that and see if it's any better.

Personally that's what I do when I need to "find" something that I don't know the exact name for.

 

[lighthouse_man]

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/