How to get Spotlight to search files without extensions

[bookmarc]

I regularly back up my email directly from my webhost server, so all the individual emails are broken up into files that have file names that look like this:

1170383510.M205774P1650V0000000000000012I0231EC00_5.sack,S=3126/2,S

Spotlight would be an ideal app to search for these emails, but unfortunately, it doesn't recognize this format because they all lack file extensions. Is there a way to force Spotlight to look at *every* single file regardless of file extension?

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I regularly back up my email directly from my webhost server, so all the individual emails are broken up into files that have file names that look like this:

1170383510.M205774P1650V0000000000000012I0231EC00_5.sack,S=3126/2,S

Spotlight would be an ideal app to search for these emails, but unfortunately, it doesn't recognize this format because they all lack file extensions. Is there a way to force Spotlight to look at *every* single file regardless of file extension?

I don't believe so. It has to index files based on words it finds in them. If it doesn't know what sort of file it is then it can't find any words in it. Perhaps there is a third party tool that can search these sort of emails.

 

[bookmarc]

I guess there's always GREP! I just did this instead, even though it would be nice to have a GUI interface:

grep -r friend@gmail.com .

I don't believe so. It has to index files based on words it finds in them. If it doesn't know what sort of file it is then it can't find any words in it. Perhaps there is a third party tool that can search these sort of emails.