Spotlight not finding files in time machine

I Have this problem where spolight is not finding the files present on my back-up drive using time machine. The files are there, I can find them manually but when searching for the using spotlight, 0 results show up. Does anyone have any exeprience with this?

The correct search method is to do a Smart Folder search and then enter Time Machine with that as the active window. Of course this searches separately in every backup. You can't, for instance (at least so far as I know), do a global search to tell you which backup a particular file is present in (wouldn't be all that clear what you were finding anyway since similarly named files or folders in different backups might have different contents).
Is this what you were doing?

Similar Messages

Why is Spotlight not finding files in Applications Support

Why is Spotlight not finding files in Users/UserName/Library/Applications Support ?
What needs to be configured to do that?
Thanks.

CMD+F, click on Kind, select Other, and enable additional criteria. See http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html and http://homepage.mac.com/francines/articles/Leopard/leospot.html for starters.

Upgraded to Mavericks, can't find files on time machine

I have an external hard drive where I backup my Macbook Pro. I recently upgraded to Mavericks and now I can't find old files on time machine. I am looking for a file around a certain date, but no matter what date I look at in time machine - the files and data seem to be the same. I hope someone has a solution to my problem!

Hi Miax1,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you are looking for a specific file in your Time Machine backup. It sounds like you are familiar with the interface but just cannot find the file. Just to make sure you are searching in the right area, I suggest reviewing the Restoring data from Time Machine backups section from the following article. Please let me know if you need further assistance.
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Restoring specific files or folders
Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu. The restore interface appears. You can literally see your windows as they appeared "back in time."
You can use the timeline on the right side of the window to reach a certain point back in time. The timeline shows the times of all backups on your backup drive. If you don’t know exactly when you deleted or changed a file, you can use the back arrow to let Time Machine automatically travel through time to show you when that folder last changed.
Note: Dates in pink indicate the data resides on your Time Machine backup device. Dates in white indicate the data resides on your Mac. In OS X Lion v10.7 and later, portable Macs include local snapshots.
You can also perform a Spotlight search from the Finder. Simply enter a search term in the Spotlight search field, and use the back arrow to have Time Machine search through your backups to find what you are looking for.
Before you restore a file, you can also use Quick Look to preview a file to make sure its the one you want. Highlight the file and press the Space Bar to bring up a quick look.
To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder. If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both.
I hope this helps,
-Joe

Spotlight not finding files on my Hard Drive - permissions issue?

I found that Spotlight in Mountain Lion was often not finding files when searching for words within the file (searching file names seemed to be OK).
I found various threads suggesting that it may be a problem with File Permissions. I use Dropbox and was concerned it may have messed up permissions after a relinking a while ago.
I tried to reset permissions from within Dropbox (under Settings, as suggested by some), but no help.
Finally I found this EXCELLENT TIP to reset permissions from within the Repair Utility (in Mountain Lion), Not the Disk Utility, which I had not been aware of:https://discussions.apple.com/message/20421138#20421138
It took a little while and then Spotlight re-indexed all my files. SO FAR it seems to be working well.
THANK YOU!!

Might try this...
Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, test if things work OK in Safe Mode.
Then move these files to the Desktop for now...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
Reboot & test.
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.

Spotlight doesn't find files after Time Machine re-load

So I just got a new macbook pro and transferred everything from my old laptop onto it using Time Machine, which worked amazingly ... only weird thing now is when i search in the Finder Search bar or in Spotlight, it doesn't find any files that were on my old computer. I can find them manually, for example, I can be looking at a file called "house-info.rtf" in my Documents folder, but if i search "house" or even "house-info" it comes up with 0 results.
Any new file (I've made or downloaded on my new machine) comes up fine in the search, it's just files from my previous computer moved over via time machine...
any ideas?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Time Machine does not save Spotlight's index, so your drive has to be re-indexed. It may be that it just hasn't "caught up" yet. Give it some time.
If you're pretty sure it just hasn't done it, you can usually get Spotlight to re-index by excluding your internal HD from Spotlight (System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy) for a few moments, then removing the exclusion. That should make it start over.

Spotlight does not find files on Time Capsule disk

I have the 2TB time capsule configured with a DATA and FIL disks. The DATA is used for the Time Machine backups. The FIL disk is used as a NAS (Network Access Storage) disk. The FIL disk works as advertised except Spotlight. When I mount the FIL as a shared disk and go into Spotlight and seach for a file by the filename, nothing happens. I spent hours on this. I seached Google and found nothing. I also tried mounting the disk as a SMB. This works partially when I alter the search criteria to seach only "Shared". But it only works within the folder. It does not search the entire tree. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

By default, network drive is not indexed.
See here for the default list of folders that Spotlight will search:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301533
You can manually turn on spotlight on a specific volume by using Terminal and enter:
sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/X
(where "X" is the name of the network volume.)
If the index is corrupted, and you want to rebuild it, enter:
sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/X

Spotlight not finding files on Mountain Lion

My Spotlight and Finder searches don't find most files/folders/applications on ML 10.8. The files are there if I browse to them manually, and I'm hoping I can fix this without a clean install.
Some things I have tried:
I've dragged the entire HDD to the Spotlight Privacy tab and removed it (to re-index).
I've checked Spotlight Preferences and everything is checked under Search Results.
Any ideas? Thanks for any suggestions.

Agreed, definitely something screwed up :-)
Tried deleting the preferences file (from ~/Library/Preferences). Nothing I did after that recreated the file including going and changing the settings (e.g. adding a directory to exlude and saving via Spotlight preferences pane), which is a bit odd.
Regardless, after that, I redid the recreation steps (i.e. adding / removing mac HD via spotlight prefs, the 3 mdutil commands above etc) and still nothing. AFAICT, there is basically no indexing or no search going on in spotligh, I think this because when I try to search via spotlight, it does nothing (i.e. not even the usual spinning wheel) and immediately returns no results, so either it is not searching or is searching an empty/tiny index I think.
Unless you have other ideas, I am going to do some jiggling (e.g. restart), maybe wait for an OS update or two and if nothing else, try reverting to an earlier time machine backup (would much rather not do this last). Any other ideas appreciated.

How do I restore 'Notes' data files from Time Machine?

My wife accidentally (more or less) deleted 7 of her Note notations because they were duplicated and she thought one should be eliminated. What happened is that when she deleted one, the system deleted both duplicates. After doing this for 7 times, she saw what was happening and stopped. We have both our iMacs backed up to a Time Machine and I have been searching these forums trying to find out the name of the data file for Notes so that I can restore it. The best I saw was Library/Containers/com.apple.notes but I could not find this file anywhere in Finder or even on the Macintosh HD. We did find out that if you delete something from Notes on your iMac, it also gets deleted in iCloud (I thought there was a backup in iCloud) iPhone, and iPad. One of these notes is irreplacable as it is a daily diary of an event in my wife's life. Can anyone please tell me where I can find the Notes data files so I can locate them on Time Machine and restore them? (Note: If I restore them from TM and they are not in iCloud will they be immediately deleted? Sorry that may be a dumb question but I've done a bit of technical work with PCs and MobileMe and iCloud seem useless. I'd just as soon plug my iPhone and iPad into my iMac to synch, you know. Thanks for any help. Gary

Here is what I have tried:
1. Finder>Go>(Option)Library>Address Book(highlighted)with files showing in right column. Opened Time Machine and Address Book folder is there. Tried to go back to several previous dates from several months ago. None will highlight in order for the Restore button to light up.
2. Finder>Mac HD (under Devices)>(Option)Library>Address Book (same as above). Again, cannot go anywhere back in time to highlight a date for Restore button to light up.
Note: I was able to use Time Machine to restore my Contacts with no problem. However, they are All Contacts only and did not restore my Groups. I do know how to make groups again and highlight and drag them back, but wanted to see if there was a way to restore the groups. I will post another question as to why my Time Machine won't let me restore the Address Book as well as the Contacts. Thank you for your time and patience.

Find files on Time Machine that weren't in the "Latest Backup"?

I restored my new Mac with the "Latest Backup" of Time Machine. I now understand that I will have to erase the whole backup harddrive in order to continue using Time Machine (I cannot get it to do incremental backups with my new computer from where I left off on the old one).
Since I deleted some files from my old computer after early backups, I presume they wouldn't be on my new computer because I backed up from the "Latest Backup", correct?
Is there any way that I can find out which files I have backed up someplace on my harddrive that are not on my computer now? That way I would be able to locate and transfer them all into a temporary folder on my computer, erase my external harddrive, do a fresh backup of everything on my computer, then I could delete that temporary folder once everything is done. That way I still won't have those files on my computer, but I will have them backed up.
Does this make sense?
Thanks a lot

Bergers wrote:
I restored my new Mac with the "Latest Backup" of Time Machine. I now understand that I will have to erase the whole backup harddrive in order to continue using Time Machine (I cannot get it to do incremental backups with my new computer from where I left off on the old one).
You may be able to get the new Mac to "inherit" the old one's backups manually. See #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
But the practice of deleting originals, assuming Time Machine will keep the backups indefinitely, is a major mistake. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #20.
Linc is correct about multiple backups -- it's always prudent. See #27 in the FAQ link for some suggestions.

Spotlight Not finding files Re indexing does not work

As the title says really, but there is more.
If I am logged in as one of two users, I can't find the file in the spotlight search, not quite...but if I log in as a new user, the file appears within a few characters being typed in the Spotlight of the new User.
The File title is Su Birth Cert.jpg
If I am logged in as that user, I have to type the filename and include the (.) full stop at the end just before the 'jpg' I don't need to type as far as jpg, Just the Full stop (.)
It is a jpg file, stored in a "Documents' sub folder with other ID info.
Images are checked in Spotlight Preferences...but it is an Image..in a Documents Sub folder.
I thought that may have been an issue...so i moved some documents over to the "pictures" home folder. Spotlight continued to find the Document in the Pictures folder.
I Duplicated the Birth Cert image..Spotlight still could not find it
I opened the Image in Preview and exported it as a PDF Spotlight can now find it iinstantly
I have re index multiple times, Re booted, Safe Booted, Recovery booted (where the Menu bar would not work, where the Menu bar wold not work) RESET PRAM
Dragged User Folders HDD to Spotlight Privacy, then deleted it so to Force Re indexing
used the command from other threads tp reset user folder permissions.
Disk Utility does not give the option to Repair Permissions on the User Folders HDD.....yes the user Folders are 'moved' via the Sys prefer /Users/ Advanced options, to a separate HDD.
Any one have any ideas?
Spotlight does just not seem to want to find some files.

Spotlight won’t work

Spotlight not finding files

I just recently used ARD to send a Unix command to tar up some files on a bunch of lab computers and stick them into an administrative directory. I'm trying to use Spotlight to pull these files over to my computer, but I can't find them.
I have set the Spotlight Search window to look only in the directory where I saved the files. I can SSH into the computers and see the files with ls. I can see them in the Finder if I log into the GUI. But Spotlight refuses to acknowledge the files' existence.
What's wrong with Spotlight, and is there a way to fix it?

I'm sorry. The above question was not clear. Here it is simpler: I recently transferred a number of files and folders from my Imac duo to my powerbook G4 laptop using firewire and terminal. The folders I have transferred cannot be found by spotlight. I have tried re-indexing the documents folder (which contains most of the additions) as well as the entire laptop hard disk -- spotlight indicates it is indexing but still does not find the folders.

Why is spotlight not finding files in a folder (I know the files are there)

I've been having trouble with spotlight. I've done all the possible means of resetting spotlight folders via pref pane and via command line. Either way I go about it spotlight is not working properly.
My test for this is to search in folder for a file I know is in there. But, spotlight in finder isn't finding the file. Why? What prevents SPotlight in FInder from seeing files that are there? None of my drives are in the privacy section of the spotlight preferences.
Leopard 10.5.6 Mac Pro

this is certainly not normal. it looks like spotlight indexing is choking on something. if this continues you should probably stop it. look in the console log. there may be a record of what it's choking on. you can try deleting the hidden spotlight folder at the top of the drive. this will restart indexing and delete all the current spotlight data. if it keeps doing this I don't really know what to suggest. you can try excluding various folders on the drive from spotlight to see if you can isolate where the problem is.

Spotlight not finding files in folders that have been extracted from ZIPs

I've got a folder, say 'test', with some images in it. It is located in ~/Pictures.
I have just downloaded another folder as a ZIP file, which Safari put in /tmp and unzipped automatically. It contains some more images. Let's call it 'exif'. I have moved 'exif' into 'test'.
Now, when I do a Spotlight search of images in the folder 'test', Spotlight does not list the images in 'exif'!
(I do the search with CMD-F, 'test' folder only, Kind = Images.)
However, when I create a different folder in 'test' and move the images from 'exif' to the new one, then a Spotlight search for images in 'test' does list those, too.
Also, when I copy the originial unzipped folder 'exif' to 'test' (Alt + mouse drag), then the images in the new 'exif' folder show up in the Spotlight search.
So it seems a folder that has been extracted from a ZIP archive does not get indexed by Spotlight -- only if its contents have been copied first.
Is this a bug in Spotlight?
Am I missing something?
It's pretty bad, because I would always have to remember to copy unzipped folders to a new one, in order to make sure that Spotlight does find the stuff!
Regards,
Gabriel.

Yeah the new search leaves something to be desired (actually the old search wasn't so great either). You get better results using Google's advanced search and restricting the search domain to discussions.apple.com.
Here's what the search in Google looks like:
Anyway the old post is why doesn't spotlight search inside aperture library? it explains why spotlight
doesn't search the library and how to work around it.

I lost 2 folders in bookmarks and can not find them in time machine

i have lion on my mac book all of a sudden I am missing 2 folders in my bookmarks, when i go to time machine i can not find them even thought i have gone back a few week, any suggesions

If you mean the address field in Safari, choose Show Toolbar or Customize Toolbar from the View menu.
If you mean the spring icon in the Dock, that's not an application. Open any site in Safari and drag the little icon of it to the Dock; the preset icon points to http://www.apple.com/macosx/
rkaufmann87: The Safari Dock icon doesn't contain an @, and no other Mac web browser icon I've seen does.
(59088)

Cannot find files after time machine restore

I have reinstalled my mac mini with Lion. After installation, I have restored the files from my time machine backup, files have been copied with window showing the copying progress.
But after the copying, I can't find the files/apps in the new system that should exisit in the backup of time machine.
I have tried restore different folders but still no change can be seen.
Anything wrong or what's the problem?

Hmmm, get Find Any File...
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
Hold Option or alt key when selecting Find to Find All.
Search for some unique file or even part that should've been imported/migrated.

Spotlight not finding files in time machine

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for