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Leopard Spotlight working better than 10.4?

zub3qin

zub3qin

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 10, 2007
1,315
4
Spotlight barely works on my macbook 10.4

It doesn't add new files into its database, so you have to manually reindex your harddrive. Some files make their way in... emails and other files don't.

Has anyone tried Spotlight on Leopard to see if it works any better?
 
I'm willing to bet it hasn't changed... Leopard seems to be a GUI update with a couple of new apps, e.g. virtual desktops and backup software, no fundamental changes though.

I feel your pain with Spotlight... in Windows there is a FANTASTIC desktop search product called Copernic... if Spotlight would only work as well as that product. Unfortunately, Copernic doesn't develop for the Mac :-(
 
Apparently, though I can't quote from direct experience, it's oceans apart from 10.4 Spotlight in speed terms, with everything being super-instant to come up. I think Spotlight sucks for you for some other unknown reason, as files not adding automatically sounds like something's wrong somewhere or other. But still. Responsiveness in apps is apparently way up too. The AirPort menu has that stupid lag whether you try it on a G3 iMac or an 8-core Mac Pro at the moment; apparently all stuff like that is instant now. :D
 
any improvements to responsiveness will be welcome indeed!

The Mac is extremely fast when an application is 'processing', but menus and launch are a little on the shall we say 'patience challenging' side.
 
chelsel said:
I'm willing to bet it hasn't changed... Leopard seems to be a GUI update with a couple of new apps, e.g. virtual desktops and backup software, no fundamental changes though.

I feel your pain with Spotlight... in Windows there is a FANTASTIC desktop search product called Copernic... if Spotlight would only work as well as that product. Unfortunately, Copernic doesn't develop for the Mac :-(
Click to expand...

I used to use Copernic with my Dell before I switched to Mac this year. I loved it.
Of course there are addons to OS X (ie google desktop) but I don't like piling program after program onto the OS which in my mind slows things down more than if Apple just got Spotlight working from the beginning.

I am not even concerned with the speed of the search in Spotlight.. I just want it to find emails and files containing particular words. Believe it or not, Spotlight is a major reason I switched to Mac.
 
chelsel said:
I'm willing to bet it hasn't changed... Leopard seems to be a GUI update with a couple of new apps, e.g. virtual desktops and backup software, no fundamental changes though.
Click to expand...

I disagree. From a developer's perspective, Leopard has plenty of "fundamental changes" under the hood.
 
Spotlight has greatly improved in leopard, especially in speed and reliability. Searching is near instantaneous even when I have my external drives hooked up. Also the problems I've had with Tiger's spotlight corrupting the preference file have disappeared. I can't speak directly to your problems, but Leopard has a lot of fundamental changes to the system services under the hood.
 
kzg said:
Spotlight has greatly improved in leopard, especially in speed and reliability. Searching is near instantaneous even when I have my external drives hooked up. Also the problems I've had with Tiger's spotlight corrupting the preference file have disappeared. I can't speak directly to your problems, but Leopard has a lot of fundamental changes to the system services under the hood.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your info!
Is there any reason to think that updating 10.4 to Leopard makes use of some Spotlight index files or some other such thing, so that if you have a problem with 10.4, it simply will transfer over into 10.5?
The more I type this the stupider it sounds, and I think I am being silly for even asking.. 10.5 must fully replace 10.4. but I am now too tired to delete everything, so i'll ask.
 
I've just upgraded to Leopard on friday morning, since then it's been a world of Spotlight excellence: with 10.4 I was unable to use metadata without having to reindex the hard drive every single time I added tags or made any changes, so it was utterly useless.

Now things are very different: smart folders actually work and spotlight will find things via tags (using QS). All I had to do was upgrade to Leopard using the 'erase and install' option, then I used the Migration Assistant to copy all my files and apps from my bootable clone backup (all done using SuperDuper, or if you don't have a firewire drive, use CarbonCopyCloner which can do the same using USB) to my Powerbook's HD. After that was done, I waited about 20mins while spotlight made an index. Since then things have been sweet. My only issue is this: how can I make a smart folder to search for multiple tags, such as '&reading' and '&medpsy'? If anyone knows the answer, a half of my kingdom is yours. :)

Dan - happy man
 
I personally don't like the upgrade much. It has lost the ability to search for system files from the spotlight menu bar.
 
DannyTheManny said:
I've just upgraded to Leopard on friday morning, since then it's been a world of Spotlight excellence: with 10.4 I was unable to use metadata without having to reindex the hard drive every single time I added tags or made any changes, so it was utterly useless.

Now things are very different: smart folders actually work and spotlight will find things via tags (using QS). All I had to do was upgrade to Leopard using the 'erase and install' option, then I used the Migration Assistant to copy all my files and apps from my bootable clone backup (all done using SuperDuper, or if you don't have a firewire drive, use CarbonCopyCloner which can do the same using USB) to my Powerbook's HD. After that was done, I waited about 20mins while spotlight made an index. Since then things have been sweet. My only issue is this: how can I make a smart folder to search for multiple tags, such as '&reading' and '&medpsy'? If anyone knows the answer, a half of my kingdom is yours. :)

Dan - happy man
Click to expand...

you think it would work if you did an archive and install?
 
DannyTheManny said:
how can I make a smart folder to search for multiple tags, such as '&reading' and '&medpsy'? If anyone knows the answer, a half of my kingdom is yours. :)

Dan - happy man
Click to expand...

So you want it to only contain files with those two keywords in the Spotlight Comments field? That is easy.

original.jpg


Now, someone tell me how to go back and edit a saved search and I'll be impressed.
 
zub3qin said:
Spotlight barely works on my macbook 10.4

It doesn't add new files into its database, so you have to manually reindex your harddrive. Some files make their way in... emails and other files don't.

Has anyone tried Spotlight on Leopard to see if it works any better?
Click to expand...

Seems a lot faster, although I'll admit that I still use Launchbar rather than the Spotlight menu item...
 
@zub3quin: I'm not sure, it may work fine, but to be totally sure I'd do a clean install and use Migration Assistant to move all my files, settings, and apps from a bootable clone.

@DaffyDuck: Excellent, a round of applause is due. I assume that by using 'match' 'contains' 'begins with' etc, I can include files that have either term as opposed to both?

As for editing a search and then saving it, doesn't seem to work: the only thing that is effective is making a new search from scratch.


Dan - spotlight whore
 
I'm having issues with Spotlight in Leopard

Spotlight is not working with the results I'm used to as in Tiger.

Can anyone help me with this problem?

I currently only have mp3s checked in the Spotlight preferences.
If I type a 'code number' for an mp3 that we use in our business in the Spotlight eyeglass in the upper right corner, I will receive only the results I expect, BUT if I open the Spotlight window with "Command-space" and enter the same thing in there, none of the Spotlight preferences I set (which I mentioned above is only mp3s) work with it--they ALL are active. I DO get the mp3 files I searched for, BUT I also get the folder and the text file that also use the same code numbering system we're using.

In Tiger, the "Command-space" method of using that search worked with the same Spotlight preferences as the eyeglass entry is now in Leopard.

Also, we have some mp3s that use the first 2 letters of MC and also DM
plus a number and letter. (i.e. MC1500a and DM1500a)
If I type 1500a, nothing comes up at all. I have to type the letters also. (This also worked fine before in Tiger). Weirdly, if I type another code number of 001870 or J-001870, it will find the J-001870 just fine.

I'm going nutts this morning with these problems only in the Leopard Spotlight.

Should I find a way of tossing the appropriate preferences or rebuilding the index to solve this problem, or am I stuck with this in Leopard.
Anyone have a better search application that uses the Spotlight indexing (NOT EasyFind)

thanks,
Jeff Michaels
 
zub3qin said:
I used to use Copernic with my Dell before I switched to Mac this year. I loved it.
Of course there are addons to OS X (ie google desktop) but I don't like piling program after program onto the OS which in my mind slows things down more than if Apple just got Spotlight working from the beginning.

I am not even concerned with the speed of the search in Spotlight.. I just want it to find emails and files containing particular words. Believe it or not, Spotlight is a major reason I switched to Mac.
Click to expand...

Spotlight is a big disappointment with emails. First I could not get it working in Mail and had to move everything to Entourage. Now it finds it but does not allow sorting by Sent Date. So if you open one it pops to the top of the Spotlight search. So in chain emails where bunch of people correspond back and forth without changing the subject field, Spotlight results are all identical, and chronology of correspondence cannot be trusted.
 
Lightening fast

Spotlight in Tiger was intolerably slow -- sometimes taking a full minute. I tried re-indexing several times, but the database kept getting corrupt. And after re-indexing, it still took 5-10 seconds.

I erased my disk and did a clean Leopard install, then used migration assitant to copy my old user folder from a cloned backup. Leopard did NOT re-index, yet was immediately more responsive -- 0.5 seconds versus 10 seconds with Tiger. Moreover, it seems better at guessing the file you want at the top of the list.

Bravo!
 
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