[X4U] Find not always works

[Randy B. Singer]

On Nov 23, 2008, at 10:58 AM, Jim Robertson wrote:

> Great tip! I was just about to post here because another Mac  
> listserv I read
> didn't have good suggestions about why Spotlight stopped finding  
> useful
> things for me.
>
> I'll wait until a few UNIX gurus chime in before I try this,  
> however :-)

Spotless is a great way to force Spotlight to rebuild its index.  You  
can also do the same using Spotlight's System Preference pane.

Open System Preferences (in the Apple menu) , choose the Spotlight  
pane, click on the Privacy tab, and drag your main drive's icon into  
the Privacy window.  Now highlight your hard drive's icon within the  
Privacy window (by clicking on it once) and
click on the "-" (that is, the minus button in the Privacy Window).

This will cause the Spotlight database to be deleted and  
automatically rebuilt. (You won't be able to use Spotlight while its  
database is being rebuilt.)

Keep in mind that even with a perfect database, Spotlight, by design,  
doesn't search everywhere on your hard drive.  There are third-party  
add-ons to force Spotlight to search in more places, such as:

Highlight (free)
http://homepage.mac.com/superpixel/highlight/

However, many folks often prefer this free search tool, which doesn't  
use Spotlight's database at all  (I'm one of those people):

EasyFind (free)
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/index.html

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________