Finder search not working Sonoma 14.3.1

[Kryten]

Nothing is showing up on either Macintosh HD or external Samsung T7, even with something obvious like .pdf or .png. I have tried Adding both to exclusion list in Siri & Spotlight, restarting and then removing them but still no Search facility. Any ideas guys?

 

[MacInWin]

Nothing is showing up on either Macintosh HD or external Samsung T7, even with something obvious like .pdf or .png. I have tried Adding both to exclusion list in Siri & Spotlight, restarting and then removing them but still no Search facility. Any ideas guys?

It works for me, although surprisingly slowly. A better search tool is Find Any File, or EasyFind. FAF is in the App Store, EasyFind is here: DEVONtechnologies | Needful Things

 

[RadDave]

Nothing is showing up on either Macintosh HD or external Samsung T7, even with something obvious like .pdf or .png. I have tried Adding both to exclusion list in Siri & Spotlight, restarting and then removing them but still no Search facility. Any ideas guys?

Hi Kryten - I aso searched 'pdf' and 'png' in Finder and immediately retrieved dozens of files (using same version of Sonoma) - might relate to indexing (Spotlight) - found this

after a quick search which might solve your issue by generating a new index of files? Don't know and have never given it a try - I guess if 'Spotlight' is working for you, then might not be the answer? Good luck. Dave

 

[Jimmysb]

Just tried mine and it works!

 

[RadDave]

It works for me, although surprisingly slowly. A better search tool is Find Any File, or EasyFind. FAF is in the App Store, EasyFind is here: DEVONtechnologies | Needful Things

Jake - I have EasyFind but have rarely use it - however, just gave it a try with 'pdf' found over a thousand, including searching in my iCloud files! Need to use more - thanks for the reminder. Dave

P.S. seems to have gone through 100+K files so assume that it's using a search engine other than looking at the indexing file in macOS?

 

[Kryten]

Hi Kryten - I aso searched 'pdf' and 'png' in Finder and immediately retrieved dozens of files (using same version of Sonoma) - might relate to indexing (Spotlight) - found this

after a quick search which might solve your issue by generating a new index of files? Don't know and have never given it a try - I guess if 'Spotlight' is working for you, then might not be the answer? Good luck. Dave

Yes thanks Dave. I watched that before coming on here. I've tried it 3 or 4 times but no luck. I guess I'll switch to Find any File as Jake suggested. It is weird through. I've been with Mac OS since system 6 and never had this problem before, as OS's get better....ahem.