Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Spotlight's Unwanted Search Results

D

digitaldeity

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2005
7
0
Ok when I installed OS X Tiger clean install I "half" expected to have no results when I type stuff into spotlight. Excluding apps and that. I kinda expected it to "index" only the stuff I put on my computer, which is what I want.

Instead apple has made everything indexed, just everything. And for example I get a acknologment file when I type in the word "gay". I don't want to have it find anything when I or someone types in gay. And it turns out to be some guys last name!

Is there ANY way to make it just index and search apps and the documents and music I've put on my computer without all that other crap?
 
go in to system prefs and go to the spotlight tab. You can uncheck all of the things that you don't want it to search (apps, documents, contacts, mail, etc).
 
Spotlight allows you to block indexing of any folder(s). I guess you could block certain system folders, but just make sure to not block the applications folder or your user folder.

Unfortunately, at this point there is no way to choose which folders to index, only those to NOT index.
 
If you go to spotlight preferences, you can exclude documents either by their filetype or by their location (specific directories). You can get there either via the option in the spotlight menu, or directly via the system preferences.

But I have to ask...if you type "gay" into your spotlight, why does it bother you that it comes up with someone whose *name* is "Gay?" Are you really that homophobic? :(
 
What is the problem?
I'd much rather have something thorough than flakey!
I really don't see the issue! Just disregard the other files - I mean for God's Sake - their grouped by kind of image! If you're looking for "Mr. Gay" then you can just go straight to the contacts section or type:
"kind:contact gay"

digitaldeity said:
I don't want to have it find anything when I or someone types in gay. And it turns out to be some guys last name!
Click to expand...
Why not? Don't you want it to find the guy?
Again: What's the problem!?

I get 43 Hits for "gay", 39 of them e-mails (that's just what my friends are like I guess!). Am I ashamed? No!
 
Seriously, this does make me think it would be useful, on occasion, if spotlight had a not delimiter, so, for instance, you could do something like look for documents containing "rock" but not "music."
 
I was just using "gay" as an example (i am by the way) so i'm not "homophobic" :cool:
But ugh...I'll try and see if I can block those system folders and see if that cleans up my search results, thanks.
 
SWEET I just picked what folders not to search and it took a while but HEY it cleaned up my results by ALOT!
 
yep, spotlight is a blessing and a disservice at the same time. When you describe what spotlight does to your friends, they instantly want to search your computer for "porn". :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back