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.

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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
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/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 not finding files it should be, including file types it shouldn't

I have several folders and documents with the word "Kiosk" in the name as a full word (not as part of another word or preceded by an underscore.) When I search my hard drive for "Kiosk" spotlight shows no results. These documents are in my documents folders. Why are they not appearing in seach results? Now I'm worried, what else doesn't Spotlight find? I used to see this problem years ago in OS X 10.3 but thought they had fixed it long ago.
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Mike K wrote:
I still can't get rid of the emails and safari history items in my search results.
Don't waste your time. I filed a bug report for this;
I've set Spotlight's Search Results to not show webpages. However, webpages are depicted.
Engineering responded with:
After reviewing your submission engineering has determined that the behavior you reported is as expected/designed.
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Spotlight not finding files in time machine

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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?

Spotlight not finding files

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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.
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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.

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I was going to ask that, but I won't Small point though, not only must it be plugged in but the drive must be "ready" as well. If it's still running up the hard drive to full speed, it isn't ready.
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Suddenly my PC can not find out TC's hard drive

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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'.
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Am I missing something?
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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
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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.
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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.
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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

ITunes not finding library on external hard drive

I have my iTunes installed on my external hard drive and that is where all of my music is stored. Every time I open iTunes it does not "remember" that my music is supposed to be saved on my external, not my laptop. I have to "add" my external to the library again and change the location of my music to my external drive. This is EXTREMELY annoying because I have a lot of music and this LITERALLY takes mulitple days, as well as the fact that it ruins all of my playlists and ratings. What can be done to solve this problem?

I was going to ask that, but I won't Small point though, not only must it be plugged in but the drive must be "ready" as well. If it's still running up the hard drive to full speed, it isn't ready.
In addition, the external drive must have the same drive letter allocated to it as before. If, for any reason, your laptop gives the external drive the drive letter E the first time, but drive letter D on the subsequent occasion, then once again, iTunes will fail to find the Library as it's "on a different drive" (letter).
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As a test, make a note of which drive letter has been used before you power off. Then check the next time iTunes fails to find the Library whether the drive has been given the same letter as before.

HT2531 Finder / Spotlight not finding files "containing ......."

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As baltwo eventually explained, you have to add the search criteria "System files" to your search, with the option "Include" selected, to find many items Spotlight otherwise excludes from search results. Alternately (& quite ridiculously), if your search is restricted to the parent folder containing the item, you don't need to add this.
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Spotlight not finding files on my Hard Drive - permissions issue?

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