Macs are terrible at file searching!

[buoyo]

Hi, I've been getting really frustrated recently with macs capabilities with file searching compared to windows.. I dont use iTunes and I don't have a photographic memory so am often looking for a word of an artists name or a word from the title of the album or perhaps from a track name.

On windows I have never had a problem doing this search, its fairly quick (maybe not as quick as mac) but it will always come up with the file if the file (mp3 wav flac etc) or album folder has the word ive searched for. If i do the same search on a mac half the time nothing will come up and its very frustrating as I know its there but I still have to trawl through albums and mp3's to find it.

Are there any programs for mac that have better file searching capabilities? Am I missing some feature already on Leopard that I dont know about? Sorry about the slight rant would really appreciate any help you can give!

 

[hughvane]

You don't tell us just how you're searching, but let's assume it's Spotlight. I've never been satisfied with the way it does things, so let me introduce to you - if you haven't met it already - Cmd-F (Finder).

It finds every non-hidden file according to the keyword you type in the search field, and displays it under various categories, eg, files, folders, html and so on.

You can get seriously serious and use a File Utility, like FileBuddy (excellent), but for what you say you want to do, Cmd-F should do the job.

 

[buoyo]

hi, thanks for the reply! I have been searching in finder i'm not quite that useless but its results seem to be really unsatisfactory. Since I havn't heard it talked about it much I presume its either because alot of mac users have only used mac, they have no need because they are very organized, they let itunes control their music collection or I'm missing something completely.

I could give plenty of examples but say I search "temple" I can see the mp3 track name "dvs - temple.mp3" in front of me but the search doesn't pick it up. In fact it seems totally random, sometimes corresponding mp3's will turn up in the search and sometimes they wont when I know they are there. If I were to search "joya" a album by "joya landis" might come up but not any of the other individual mp3's (which have joya in the name).

I also get completely random results like say I type in "two" looking for a mp3 file with "two fingers" in the title it would return (among many other files) "09 All Them.mp3".

This is all with the "File name" option selected in the search. The majority of these files being searched for are on an external hard drive if that makes any difference? Would indexing help at all?

 

[technologist]

I'm going to just agree with you there. The technology behind Spotlight is very powerful and fast, but the interface doesn't give you nearly enough control or options.

Luckily there are free file-finding applications you can use instead
Download Find Any File for Mac - Search your disks for files using various criteria. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads
Download EasyFind for Mac - File, folder, and text contents search tool. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads

 

[ukchucktown]

A lot of users will tell you to use Spotlight or Finder. Spotlight is powerful but it takes quite a bit of time to learn its nuances and configure. The default Spotlight search stinks in my opinion. It's pretty useless.

When I'm really looking for files I generally resort to using the find command in a terminal. The find command comes from Mac's BSD roots. You can learn about it by opening a terminal and typing "man find" to view the manual page. It's powerful but can be slow. Most searches are slow if they don't rely on a database or meta data like Spotlight. That's why Spotlight doesn't return results on a lot of files, no meta data.

If you take the time to learn find and regular expression syntax you can root out just about anything on a Mac. If you prefer to stay GUI your best bet is a third-party utility to make your life easier.

 

[hughvane]

I could give plenty of examples <......> If I were to search "joya" a album by "joya landis" might come up but not any of the other individual mp3's (which have joya in the name).<.....> This is all with the "File name" option selected in the search.

I'm grasping a bit here, because I'm on my iMac with Panther, whose Search function is a bit antiquated, but from memory of what Tiger does with its Cmd-F search, it might be that you need to define the search criteria more carefully.

For example, you should direct Finder to search for files whose name contains the search word, which covers everything from an initial word to any placement of that word in a file name (= song title).

The majority of these files being searched for are on an external hard drive if that makes any difference? Would indexing help at all?

Your mention of the external hard drive makes me wonder if you're directing Finder to look on that drive. I know that in TigerOS, Finder does not automatically search anything other than the internal HD - unless it's told to.

I don't know about Indexing other than it forms part of the HFS+ (journaled) formatting of boot drives.

 

[Aptmunich]

I dont use iTunes

I know iTunes can be a bit of a pain at first, but if you have a largish music collection, it does make life a lot easier. The search is instant and very good as well...

If the issue that has stopped you from switching is a manual folder sorting structure, just uncheck "copy files to music library" and you can just use iTunes as a way to see the music in your own folders.

 

[Oneironaut]

There's always Quicksilver, which lets you customize which items on your HD are catalogued and lets you perform actions on them right from its floating window interface. It's free but in beta so there might be some bugs.

 

[miditime]

Macs are terrible at file searching

Windows - all versions are terrilble at file searching - But Macs up until 10.6.8 were Rock Solid.

I would search through 10 TB of disk files for content and my Mac would find it every time.

Now- not only can my Mac not find content - but pulls up hundreds of unrelated file hits that don't have anything to do with my search on Name of File searches.

I've re-indexed all my disks - which helped - but it's still awful at searching.

Spotlight is really lame.

Powerful is not a word I would use to describe it's search capabilities.

Lame would be the word.

OS 10.6.8 was "powerful"

Apple is trying to make their operating system more like Windows 8. Yuch!!!!!!!

Steve Jobs is turning in his grave.

As soon as he departs - no one is watching the programmers. (Hired at min. wage from Microsoft.)

When I want to find a file - I do not want to see hundreds of unrelated files that do not contain the words I typed in to search.

Many times I'm forced to remember where I put files.

thanks Apple for a huge step backwards!

 

[cradom]

Way to dredge up a four year old thread!
Zombie thread alert!!

 

[harryb2448]

Lol Craig!! What do you think ~ trolls?

 

[cradom]

Nah, just not paying attention I guess.

 

[chscag]

I don't know Harry.... Those Trolls are beginning to infiltrate our forums. We were able to take a photo of one. Says he's looking for a guy named Craig. ;P

 

[harryb2448]

You got it wrong again Charlie. That is a zombie from the 'Zombie Alert' craig posted, not a troll. A troll is a little doll like figure!

 

[miditime]

Ahh,
You are the guys that make forums irrelevant to being helpful.

Why don't you get a room.

This thread was the #1 hit on my google search for what is wrong with the new MAC OS file search capabilities.

I can see you guys are busy with each other so I'll try a relevant forum.

 

[dtravis7]

To my eyes with Lion and above Spotlight search works differently then it did in Snow Leopard. I doubt much can be done to help your issue except maybe checking the right boxes in Spotlight. That helps but to me it's never been quite the same since 10.7.

The reason people said what they did is old threads like this really are dead. Post a new thread on the subject next time for more help.

 

[miditime]

Hey, Thanks.

Yeh, I just am amazed that Apple let such an important feature lose it's integrity.

I'm left with the same feeling as when I saw Windows 8 for the 1st time on one of my new laptops. ***!
try to open 2 different application windows at the same time on a laptop. What a joke. Who are the people re-engineering the workflow on these computers? You want to learn how to do something better. Not learn how to do the something you used to know how to do.

Anyhow, this thread was THE number 1 search result on google today 5-10-14. People still see these threads when looking for answers. The best answer I'd found was to re-index the disks. Which literally took 2 - 3 days.

My MAC found files great until I updated my OS to 10.8.5. Which I only did because 30% of my applications weren't working right in 10.6.8 - Just bought a new iMac for my son - same faulty search results.

Anyhow, thanks for the reply!

 

[chscag]

I never used the search feature in Windows because it was brain dead. There are enough free third party Windows search utilities to fill a Xmas stocking. The same goes for Mac OS X. Spotlight in my opinion, is likewise brain dead. There are some folks who say they can do just about anything with Spotlight - you know, leap tall buildings, etc. Not me. Instead I've found several free apps that work lightning fast and will run rings around Spotlight.

Find Any File

Easy Find

 

[dtravis7]

Just a quick note. I am on my older Intel iMac with 10.7.5 and if i put in an almost exact filename the search just shows that file. In 10.8 I remember all sorts of results even when I put in the exact filename. So maybe that is what you are seeing in 10.8.5.

I still find it better than in most Windows installs, but I think it took a step backward somewhere in more recent times.

Try what Chscag suggested.

 

[miditime]

Thanks so much webmaster, and all.

Love the answer:

Find Any File (Download Find Any File for Mac - Search your disks for files using various criteria. MacUpdate.com)

Easy Find (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/easyfind/id411673888?mt=12)