[X4U] what to use to search HD

[John Baltutis]

On 09/05/07, Mark Des Cotes <lists at marksmandesign.ca> wrote:
>
> So what's the best (hopefully free) app to search HDs? I'm not crazy
> about Spotlight. I'd like to be able to search everywhere including
> the system folders. I'm on Mac 10.4.10.

SpotLess isn't bad. If you're mostly search for files/folders by name, use the
Terminal command, locate. Alternatively, if you want Spotlight to search
everywhere, modify the hidden _rules.plist in /.Spotlight-V100/. This is what
mine looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>EXCLUDE</key>
        <array/>
        <key>INCLUDE</key>
        <array>
                <string>/System</string>
                <string>/Library</string>
                <string>/Developer/ADC Reference Library</string>
                <string>/etc</string>
                <string>/private</string>
                <string>/usr</string>
                <string>/bin</string>
                <string>/sbin</string>
        </array>
        <key>NOTE</key>
        <string>Specify paths to include or exclude, preceeding rules which
target user-homes with ~/</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Copy the original to the desktop, open it with TextEdit, modify to suit your
needs, save it, and copy the revised one to /.Spotlight-V100/. Requires using
the Terminal and prefacing the copy commands with sudo.