Search for files on my external HD

[D-a-a-n]

Hi,

When I'm searching for something on my external drive, 0 results come up..
I've read that apparently you have to let spotlight index it, but I don't want to do this, I've set it not to in my system preferences..

So is it possible to search my external drive even when I set it not to get indexed by spotlight? (without using a 3rd party app)

Bye.

 

[Bear]

There are Terminal commands to help you search the drive but nothing with the interface like Spotlight. Look up 'grep'.

Why don't you want to enable spotlight on the external drive? You could always block some folders on it from being indexed if it doesn't make sense to index those folders and you could still use Spotlight to search the rest of the drive.

 

[D-a-a-n]

There are Terminal commands to help you search the drive but nothing with the interface like Spotlight. Look up 'grep'.

Why don't you want to enable spotlight on the external drive? You could always block some folders on it from being indexed if it doesn't make sense to index those folders and you could still use Spotlight to search the rest of the drive.

Yes, my previous OS was a linux distro so I know the available commands.. I've set it not to index it because every time I'm connecting the external hd it will index and keep my mac busy for a while .

 

[GGJstudios]

When I'm searching for something on my external drive, 0 results come up..
I've read that apparently you have to let spotlight index it, but I don't want to do this, I've set it not to in my system preferences..

So is it possible to search my external drive even when I set it not to get indexed by spotlight? (without using a 3rd party app)

Why would you not want Spotlight to index the drive? There's no disadvantage to having it indexed, other than the time it takes for the initial index.

Yes, my previous OS was a linux distro so I know the available commands.. I've set it not to index it because every time I'm connecting the external hd it will index and keep my mac busy for a while .

After the initial index, maintaining that index when you reconnect should be so quick as to be virtually unnoticeable.