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jgilmore

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 23, 2003
13
2
Hi. Title says it all. For several months, when I go to the Recents folder in Finder, it has only been showing files opened from my external drive, not from the Macintosh HD or iCloud. I thought upgrading from Monterey to Ventura would fix it, but nope. if I don't connect the external drive, Recents shows empty. I've tried to reindex by adding the main drive in spotlight privacy settings then removing it, didn't help. I tried to create a Smart Folder for recents, but it ends up populating with lots of system files. Tried various raw queries I've found in Google: nope. It's not the end of the world, but its annoying. Any ideas?
 
I tried to create a Smart Folder for recents, but it ends up populating with lots of system files
That is what I have done. I use this "all and any" structure:
1668652716304.png


The first "any" is to define what kind of files I want (add extra lines for a mixture). The second "any" to define dates (opened/modified/created).

Smart Folders in Finder are not very good for restricting source disk or folders - just gets from anything in the Spotlight indexes. If I want to restrict by location (or other clever things) I use the app HoudahSpot (not free, but strongly recommended) which is an alternative search tool using the Spotlight indexes.

If your Spotlight indexes are in a mess, the Terminal command 'mdutil -sav' shows their current state
 
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