Spotlight fails to find files with search items

I just did a Spotlight search on
Japanese English は
Spotlight found more than 3500 items, but the two sample Word files I looked at didn't have は in them.
This is really frustrating. Is there a way to ensure Spotlight only finds files with the input?

Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

Similar Messages

  • Spotlight does not find files with "_" (underscores), but only for certain file types

    Hey Folks,
    this is strange, maybe someone has an idea.
    I already searched the internet for a while, nothing found so far.
    I have a file "calc_mean.m" on my desktop.
    When I type "calc" in spotlight, it shows the file.
    But when I type "calc_" it suddenly does not show the file anymore. Nor does find the file, when I enter "calc_mean.m" in spotlight.
    When I enter "calc mean.m" in spotlight, it finds it (using space instead of the underscore).
    Now comes the real surprise:
    When I rename the file to "calc_mean.txt", spotlight suddenly DOES find the file when entering "calc_mean.txt".
    I recreated this "feature" with other files, copying and renaming ".txt" files to ".m" files, and if there's a underscore in the file, spotlight wont find it.
    Playing around a bit more, it seems spotlight does find files with underscore when they are documents, at least it works for the following extensions:
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    .doc
    .txt
    .xls
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    .m
    .k
    .a
    .ka
    (and other random endings I tried).
    I am pretty confused. Sure it's no big deal learning to search for files that include underscores in their name using space instead. But I'm still quite puzzled. Any idea?

    All of those have meaning in various database search syntax (not sure if it matters).
    _ usually means any character.
    % usually means any run of characters.
    - is often used to negate what comes next, i.e. "don't include results that have the following text."
    I don't see any problem on my Mac, though.
    I also don't have any problem finding file names with those accented characters using Spotlight. I would suggest reindexing Spotlight, but if cmd-f finds them, I'm not sure that would help.
    Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

  • Spotlight fails to find files & folders

    Spotlight frequently fails to find files or folders that I have created on my user. Some files and folders will show up, but perversely never the ones I want. For example, I wanted to locate a folder I have entitled "Business Card", so I entered "Business" into spotlight. I got a couple of "business" hits on my documents, and a whole slew of system ones and mail messages, but I had to shuffle manually through my files until I found it. And this kind of thing is happening all the time, to the point where I have virtually written off Spotlight.
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    Any thoughts as to why this is happening?
    Thanks.

    Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
    I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
    http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

  • Fails to find files that exist, fails to search everywhere

    Running OSX 10.4.3 on a Powerbook G4 1.5gHz and on a PowerMac G4/867.
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    in the search field,
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    •I make use of OSX Mail only occasionally. For most of my e-mail, I use a Unix mail handler known as PINE. PINE stores incoming and outgoing mail as plain text files in /users/me/mail . However, Spotlight refuses to include that location in its searches. I have tried using the Spotlight preferences to add
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      Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

    same problem here. the only answer i can find is....spotlight buh-lows. does anyone know if we can just revert to ye olden way of searching? simple things like: searching actually find the stuff you're searching for. and: list of items found arrangeable by date/alphabetically (just like any normal window in osx). also, is hitting apple-f essentially just bringing up spotlight in its own window, or does this search function differ at all? sorry to hijack the thread, but we suffer from the same problems. thank you!
    pb12   Mac OS X (10.4.2)  

  • Spotlight fails to find existing files

    ?- why should spotlight sometimes fail to find files that are already on drives attached to our fileserver?
    Is there anything I can do to 'force' a rigorous search?

    Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
    I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
    http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

  • Script to find files with same names with in a folder and it sub folders.

    Looking for script to find files with same names with in a folder and it sub folders.

    Are you just looking to find if any two files underneath a folder have the same name?
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    It's a bit long for a "one-liner", but functional.
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  • Finding file with Spotlight

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  • Does anyone know what the file "memeodhelper is? It's preventing me from backing up my home directory. I can't even find the file with search. Hidden somehow?

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    Hi Ray,
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    https://discussions.apple.com/message/11237019?messageID=11237019&tstart=0#11237 019?messageID=11237019&tstart=0
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    http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/
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  • Content DB Search fails to find file

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    I got the same problem here, and I found the solution from MetaLink.
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  • Using spotlight comments to find files

    Hello
    I am new to this forum so please be patience with me. I would like to use keywords in the spotlight comment area to find files on our shared network. However, I am having problems with this. I can find files by name, but not by contents or spotlight comments on our shared network. Can anyone help me with this problem.
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    Message was edited by: Heather316

    To Apple Discussions!
    Check out the Article: Using Spotlight to search for items
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  • Spotlight can't find file (even after re-indexing)

    I have a files right on my desktop that neither spotlight or finder can find in their search results. Don't know when this started happening, but very weird. I've re-indexed several different ways but still no luck. Anybody run into this?

    Baltwo: Thanks for the try, but your answer had no bearing.
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  • Spotlight can't find files on my camera's SD card.

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  • Spotlight fails to find folders

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  • Spotlight can't find files

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