Spotlight Missing Files

Hi folks. I'm not sure why this is happening but no matter how many times I rebuild the index, Spotlight invariably misses some things. For instance, I have a file called passwords.doc. This was created a long time ago, and is obviously a Word file. Spotlight will not find this if I type password, but will if I make it plural. Yet there is a "2007 passwords" rtf file on the computer that it will find as soon as i type pas or pass. Another is a saved html page, called something like "social circles blah blah blah" ... if i type social, nothing. Social circle, nothing. social circles, and it pops up.
Is this a permissions issue? Is there a way to fix this? I just want the tool to be reliable, and I thought I had lost the old password file for days before I found it manually.
Thanks all.
John Tracey

Spotlight is missing files.... I have a file "DSC_2000.jpg" - nothing found although there is a file with name in folder "pictures" - and it does not appear in my today or yesterday finder folder - even though it was created today.
The weird thing if I look up "DSC_1" I get files - if I look up "DSC_" I get files but not any "DSC_2"
"000.jpg" gets nothing.
Does it take time for files to get indexed for Spotlight or placed into the "Today folder " --- the files are about 1 hour old...?

Similar Messages

Spotlight missing files and folders?

Spotlight consistently misses certain files and entire folders, which I can find by rummaging through my finder, but can't find by searching in Spotlight. No these are not hidden files or library folders. Yes I have checked my privacy settings and used the privacy options to re-index spotlight. Why would Spotlight miss certain folders? Does it only search to a certain depth? How can I get Spotlight to search these folders?

Step 1
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -F '$Time $Message' -k Sender mdworker -o -k Message Rne Norm -k Sender mds | tail | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.
Step 2
Enter the following command as in Step 1 and post the output:
mdutil -as 2>&- | pbcopy
You can then quit Terminal.
Step 3
Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Terminal. In the Console window, look under the heading DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION on the left for crash reports related to Spotlight. If you don't see that heading, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar. A Spotlight crash report has a name beginning in "mds" or "mdworker" and ending in ".crash". Select the most recent such report, if any, from the System and User subcategories and post the entire contents—the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post any other kind of diagnostic report, such as hang logs—they're very long and not helpful.

Spotlight missing files/folders/apps

Not sure why, but spotlight has started missing files/folder/apps from searches.
I have tried rebuilding the index using all the sudo commands, and third party apps like Onxy with no success. I have also deleted the .plist file- still with no luck.
Spotlight will find some folder/files within a directory, but not others in the same dir. App have started not showing up now too.
Any help or advice is appreciated as this is causing productivity problems at work now!

I read it, but there's nothing in the mdutil manpage about blowing away the entire Spotlight directory. That's why it leads the pack. Alternatively, boot with the install disc, select your language, select Terminal from the Utilities menu in the next window, and do this command:
*sudo rm -R /Volumes/"name of original boot volume"/.Spotlight-V100*
quit the Terminal app, and reinstall Snow Leopard. See if that fixes the issue.

Spotlight misses files

In a sub-folder of my Documents folder, there is a new file - a new file that Spotlight refuses to recognize / scan. I erased its index and re-indexed yesterday because it wasn't reliable (using ONYX http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582. Now it's the same again.
I have already tried this trick with the Documents folder and its sub-folder: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301562; didn't help.
???

Thanks for posting, now I can mark it as "answered".
(I forgot it, and when I had hit "post message", there was no way to do so.)

Spotlight Indexing, Systemstats, Missing File, All After Mavericks Upgrade

Dear Mac Support Communities,
The upgrade to OS X 10.9.4 has crippled my computer.
My main question is: should I reformat, or should I wait for a patch to come out to solve whatever is wrong with Mavericks? I explain below.
Spotlight is constantly indexing. The mdworker is all over the place on the Activity Monitor—4% and then it explodes to 85% of CPU usage. Systemstats kicks in randomly (connected to spotlight perhaps?) and eats up 90% of my CPU and 3gigs of RAM. Time Machine takes AGES to backup.
I have not been able to stop Spotlight's endless indexing. I have moved my hard drive and my Time Machine backup into the 'private' filter in 'Spotlight Preferences.' I have also tried the "sudo mdutil -a -i off" trick to stop indexing altogether. But Spotlight Indexing goes "off" and then automatically turns "on" in Terminal. Spotlight carries on, and the computer performance is choppy.
I've run disk repair. First, I repaired permissions. Then I verified and attempted to repair the the hard drive. There is a missing file apparently, and I therefore must reformat. This is very first issue I've ever had with the hard drive since I bought the computer. Considering how awful Mavericks has been—I have been reading other Support Communities posts—I'm nervous about something going wrong, or that all these problems will persist after the reformat.
All of this has occurred three days after my upgrade to to OS X 10.9.4. I have heard of numerous people having problems with Mavericks. All similar problems concerning missing files, haywire spotlight, systemstats devouring any remaining CPU power and memory space, and slow Time Machine back-ups.
Anyone with the same problems? Care to theorize some solutions?
I have a late 2008, 15inch MacBook Pro., 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, running OS X 10.9.4 (13E28).
Cheers! I appreciate the help.

Older Macs have more troubles under Mavericks. Considering the age of your Mac, it's not uncommon to start have hardware issues like drive failure.
To repair the drive you must boot from the Recovery Drive.
Boot into the Recovery Drive by holding down Command R when restarting.
Run Repair Drive and Repair Permissions using Disk Utility in Recovery.***
Next Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs following directions here This will serve two purposes. It will reset YOUR permissions. Not the same as Disk Utility reset permissions and it will cause Spotlight to re-index your drive when restarting.
Restart
Download and run the combo updater to refresh your OS X files.
OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 Update (Combo)
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1755
MORE INFO ON WHY RUNNING COMBO FIXES ISSUES
Apple updates available from the Software Update application are incremental updates. Delta updates are also incremental updates and are available from Apple Downloads (software updates are generally smaller than delta updates). The Combo updates contain all incremental updates and will update files that could have become corrupted.
Combo updaters will install on the same version as they're applying--no need to roll back or do a clean install.
"Delta" updaters can only take you from one version to the next. For example: 10.9.3 to 10.9.4. If somehow the 10.9.3 is missing something it should have, and that something isn't changed between 10.9.3 and 10.9.4 it will still be stale after the delta update.
***If Disk Utility is unable to repair you will have to copy your data to an external drive first. Reformatting will erase the drive. You should have a backup regardless, if your data is important to you. Just like a seat belt and an air bag protect you in different ways when driving, you need both Time Machine and a clone for full protection. If you don't have an external drive for backup, I can give you some suggestions to get you started.
Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.
SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Where are my "missing" files?

I had downloaded some files all to one folder created on my Desktop. I later transferred all these files and the folder to an external hard drive as a backup. I think-but am not certain-that I then dragged the folder and files from the Desktop to the Trash, and then emptied the trash. This is what I intended to do. In any event, the icon for this folder and its files no longer appears on my desktop.
I was recently looking for something else and did a "Find" based on "ending with" the same extension as these files referred to above, and lo, here appeared this folder with its files which I thought I'd deleted. The find window indicates the path to be the computername/Desktop/Foldername/filenames. However, if one clicks on the Tiger desktop icon and displays the desktop window, no files or folders appear there (which is what I expected, as I had removed everything from the desktop to the trash earlier as I indicated above.) If one closes all windows and looks at the desktop, only the hard drive icon appears there. Therefore, where ARE these files which appear in the Find window which say they are on the desktop but aren't? The files are indeed there someplace, too, as one can double-click them open and they are fully functional.
Is this a case of UNIX/OS X goofiness? Is there more than one "Desktop" in OS X? (I've never had something like this happen in the MacOS before all the way back to MacOS 1.x)!

OK! This is odd and I don't see why it is happening! I can do what you recommend -- I had already done that even--but, I cannot get the Desktop enclosing folder to display: it disappears.
I can do a "find" and get a list of the files in the Spotlight window. At the bottom of the window I can see that the files are in "Folder A". I can see that Folder A is in a folder entitled "Desktop". I can see that this Desktop folder is on my internal hard drive (the only hard drive on this computer). From the nesting at the bottom of the window I can double click on the Folder A and get a finder window to open in the column view. This view shows that it is in the Desktop folder among all the other stuff listed in the left-most column, which otherwise shows the rest of the contents of the Hard Drive. However, if I do anything in this window, then the Desktop folder DISAPPEARS along with its listing of Folder A and the files in Folder A. If I click on the Desktop icon which appears on the left along with the typical Tiger icons there (Applications, Documents, etc.), then all that appears is the one other folder which is actually on my desktop and which I can use in a normal fashion, but it has nothing to do with this mystery Desktop which has my Folder A with my "missing" files.
Comprende?

Missing Files After Deleting OS X System Folder from Disk

This is my first post; I'll try to be brief.
I got a new computer (G5 dual) and so wanted to "clean up" my G4 tower for my wife's use. I had three hard drives in the G4, one of which was an 80 GB drive with OS X (Tiger, I think) on it. Another drive had OS 9 on it.
I bought a 300 GB drive for the G4 and put Tiger on that drive. Then I moved OS 9 to the 80 GB drive. In the process, far as I can remember, I deleted only the OS X System Folder from the 80 GB drive (not any prominent folders that appear in "fancy" form on the left side of a Finder Window); so, one OS on each drive.
I deleted a number of files, and moved a number of files, in the process of doing my "clean up." Those files that I *moved* I can now find, no problem. But I left some files in the Movies folder (the "fancy" folder that is on the left side of a Finder Window in OS X) on the 80 GB, and those I now cannot find. My concern is that perhaps, in deleting the OS X System Folder from that drive I somehow either 1) also deleted the Movies Folder (inside the Home Folder inside the Users Folder) by the very act of deleting the System Folder (which seems unlikely to me) or 2) I managed to "hide" the Movies Folder by deleting the OS X System Folder.
I have far more available space on the 80 GB drive than I would expect to see, given the steps I had to take to get some files onto CDs, etc. (I needed all the space I could free up, as I recall). So, this suggests the missing files just might still be there. Spotlight can't see them; booting in OS 9 and using Sherlock doesn't reveal them....
Have I inadvertantly removed these files, or is there hope that they can be restored to life? A related question: If I did delete these files, is there a way to "un-delete" them at this stage?)
Many thanks for any thought anyone may have.
Bob ("rsimon")
G4 Tower (pre-mirror) Mac OS X (10.4.3) Also have G5 dual

If you did actually delete your valuable files, you want to stop using that computer as soon as possible. You'd have a good chance to recover deleted files, unless they're already overwritten by other data.
Boot your G4 in Firewire Target Disk Mode (hold down "T" at startup) and connect it to your new G5 using a Firewire cable.
The drives inside the G4 will mount as removable media, so you can browse them and try to find your movies folder. It should be located at
harddrive/user/username/movies.
You can use a utility like WhatSize to find large, (maybe hidden) files.
Post back, in case your data has disappeared and you need a file recovery tool.
Good luck.

Missing files following time machine restore

I recently had my hard drive replaced by Apple following a recall of the particular drive installed in my machine when I bought it. Before taking it into Apple I had completely backed up my machine onto an external drive using Time Machine. Once the drive was replaced I restored the system using Time Machine but since have noticed a couple of quirks.
The first is that I'm missing files from iPhoto. The missing files are from my most recent upload and are a combination of images and video which were uploaded together. iPhoto knows they should be there because it's showing the file name (and video length for the video files) but the files themselves are missing and cannot be found when searching for them in Spotlight or when using the "show file" option in iPhoto.
The other major bugbear is that I'm missing a lot of my album artwork within iTunes - this includes for music, TV shows and movies. These were all there before the hard drive was replaced but are missing following the reinstall.
Fortunately I asked Apple to provide me with the original drive which I have but I'm unsure about what I need to do to fix the two issues above. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Restore your iPhoto and iTunes libraries in the time-travel interface. If that doesn't work, try an older snapshot. Some files may be missing because the drive was malfunctioning. That was the reason for the recall.

Computer reset to default-like state, missing files.

I was working late on an assignment, and once i was complete, i saved, and shut my computer down, just like every other time that i used my iMac. The next day, my computer started up normally, i logged into my account, and i found myself puzzling over why my dock was reset, the two stacks "Documents" and "Downloads" were silver question marks, my hard drive icon was missing (fixed that in finder preferences) and everything on my desktop was gone. Unlike the HD icon that i could make reappear, these files were GONE. I searched my entire HD and couldn't find a trace of them. I also noticed that all of my applications had been reset. When i opened iTunes, it went through setup assistant, but thankfully my music was still there, along with my photos in my iPhoto library. All of my applications still had all of the data, but they were acting like i hadn't used them before.
After doing some research, I have found that the cause may be the name of my home folder being accidentally reset. Unfortunately, this isn't true, because my home folder has exactly the same name, and haven't even touched my home folder.
If you can find any way to help my computer return to the way I had it at, and help me find those missing files, It will be deeply appreciated.

So running +Repair Disk+ did not report any errors, or did it report errors that were then repaired successfully?
If it did report errors that were repaired, the files may still be missing after the repair. The actual data may still be on the drive, it's just that the file system has lost track of those files. You may be able to use a data recovery program to recovery that data. However, if new data has been written over the disk space used by the lost data, that portion will not be recoverable. One such program is
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php?PHPSESSID=216be88cbbb8a850c5f 0b9decfb1dac4
The multi-functional TechTool Pro (Micromat) also has a data recovery tool.
If it did report errors, and they were NOT repaired successfully by Disk Utility, you may be able to use a third-party utility such as TechTool Pro or DiskWarrior (Alsoft) to do the repair. They may be able to reconstruct your disk directory data so that some or all of your lost data is recovered.
If NO ERRORS were reported by Disk Utility, the cause of this problem may be user-related. Is it possible you mistakenly moved the files/folders to a new location? For example, if you accidentally dragged the Library folder (the one in your user home folder) to a different location, since the user and application preference files are in there, your apps may run using the default settings the next time you run them. The Dock would also get reset. Use Spotlight to search for one of your missing documents, by file name. If you actually find the path to one such document, you may find them all along the same path. If they were accidentally sent to the Trash, but you have not emptied the Trash, they may be in the Trash.

Help! Can I recover missing files?

Hi - I just set out to back-up some project files by dragging a folder containing them from my desktop to the icon for a blank CD-R. I had second thoughts, so (without burning the CD) I dragged the folder out of the CD-R and back to the desktop. There is now only an "alias" of the original folder on the desktop. I cannot find the original folder or the files contained within it.
Is there a disk utility program/function (either Apple or 3rd party) that can help me find these missing files? Thanks.

hi dinaleo,
barry's suggestion for locating them was to do a 'spotlight' search, which is in the top right corner of the screen, and looks like a magnifiying glass on a blue circle. if you click on this and type in anything from the title of documents/folders to words in them to extensions (e.g. .doc, .mp3, .psd, .pdf), to the date it was created, or basically anything else, spotlight will give you a list of files or folders containing these. the more you type the more specific the search it will be with less results to look through.
note: the 'show all' button gives you a better viewing window.
and fyi: when you drag contents onto a disc(cd-r, dvd-r, etc.) icon, you don't actually move the files. you just create an alias, and then when you burn they are 'copied'. but like barry said, unless you move something to the trash, it is not taken from the system.
and if you had moved it to the trash that would be the first place to look.
barry, i hope i'm not butting in here
joey

TS1368 I'm a PC user with an itunes account for several years. I updated my itunes and now it wont open and shows me 'missing file MSVCR80.dll,and error 7(Window error 126)' keep coming up even after re-installing itunes . What should i do?

I'm a PC user with an itunes account for several years. I updated my itunes and now it wont open and shows me 'missing file MSVCR80.dll,and error 7(Window error 126)' keep coming up even after re-installing itunes . What should i do?

Click here and follow the instructions.
(98897)

Captivate 6 Errors: Missing file libwinpthread-1.dll and The Application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b) on Windows 2008 R2

Hi,
I have a problem with Captivate 6 installation on Windows Server 2008 R2. I have 2 different scenarios where I tested but the result is same.
1- I used AMEE (Application Manager Enterprise 3.1) to create the installation Package to deploy through SCCM 2012.
Notice that the current package works fine on Windows7 (x86 & x64) but not on 2008 R2 due to an error after I try to launch Captivate.exe application.
The error states that there's a Missing file: libwinpthread-1.dll and if I copy and made a registration of this .DLL file then it sends another error saying: The Application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b) so it never let me launch the application.
2- Now if I install the package directly from the Original sources(CD) without creating any AMEE package after completing the installation I still have the same error about the DLL missing file.
Is there any fix or workaround to install Captivate 6 on Win2008 R2 ?
Thanks in advance & kind regards.

Wow, No replies so far !!
Any one ??

I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,00 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue?

I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,000 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue? I've looked at all the tutorials on youtube and none of it works. I recently got a new computer and I Back-Up all my music and itunes playlist and I import it on my new computer with the new itunes and I go to play a few songs, it says I'm missing them I locate a few but it's still like 3,000 missing and again they are all on the computer and in one folder..Please Help !

I did that and nothing changed half my songs still have examination marks beside them
I also just tried dragging my folder of music int he playlist and it duplicated all of my songs? My playlist was at 5k now it's at 10k becuz of 3 duplicates of songs. Is there a way to delete multiple duplicate files?

I downloaded some videos to Premier Elements 13 from external hard drive but now the external hard drive is damaged. I tried to open the videos on the organizer which it shows the video but with a yellow ? and says missing file. Is there anyway I can open

I downloaded some videos to Premier Elements 13 from an external hard drive but now the external hard drive is damaged. While setting up my new MAC the external hard drive was dropped and I have been told by an outside source they could not retrieve the files. It had 4 years of photos and videos on it. I remembered that I had downloaded some of the videos from the external hard drive (before it was broke) to Adobe Organizer 13 when I installed the Adobe 13 on my MACOS X 10.9.5. I tried to open the videos on the organizer which it shows the video but with a yellow ? and says missing file. Is there anyway I can open these videos?
Any input is greatly appreciated!! I am sick over losing the videos and had a little hope on Adobe Organizer until I was unable to open them. I am thinking it is due to my external hard drive not being plugged in. I thought when I transferred from the external hard drive to Adobe 13 that it would be there without the external hard drive needing to be attached but maybe I did something wrong.
Thanks again for any help!!!!

jnrmendonca
It had 4 years of photos and videos on it.
To what did your camera record those photos and videos - camera's internal memory, inserted memory card, other?
Any remote chance that the latter may still exist for you to use to download the camera files to your new external hard drive?
ATR

Getting an error message about a missing file when I try to open Firefox

When I tried to open Firefox today I received a message about a missing file (Wrusr.ddl) and that Firefox was not able to open. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but it did not work. I have no idea what that file is or where is went. I used Firefox 2 days ago and it was working fine. The only thing that changed between then and today was that I renewed my antivirus software but I definitely did not delete any files and I made sure that Firefox is allowed to access the internet. I've been using that same software (Webroot) with Firefox for years and never had any issues before today. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I have included a screenshot of the error message below.

hello angelag.132, the WRusr.dll file is part of Webroot SecureAnywhere - try to reinstall or uninstall that software.

Spotlight Missing Files

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