Spotlight search for folders

hello
i was wondering if there is way, in the finder window, to search for a folder. i mean like if you want a pdf, you type the name, then .pdf ;specifically, I am looking for the Library folder to get at my .plist files. thanks, i hope that makes sense.

From any active Finder window press COMMAND-F to bring up a Spotlight search query or simply enter a search string in the search field in the right side of the Finder's toolbar.
Note that Spotlight will not search system folders unless you configure its search options.

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Spotlight Search for iBooks

It would be great to have spotlight search for iBooks.

Hi,
have the same requirement. iBooks as it designed right now is not Apple like at all.
Spotlight is not able to find books.
Files are renamed into the depth of operating system.
Like this I better keep my PDFs in normal folders being able to search for the title and even the contents.
Actually I expected that feature in Yose. ...
Joachim Seubert

Spotlight search for text messages not working

After upgrading to ios8, I discovered that the spotlight search for text messages only "sees" my last two texts but not any of the others I have on my phone. These are all active conversations, not deleted messages. Any ideas how to fix? Thanks.

I Fixed mine by going to setting->General->Sptolight and unchecking "messages", exiting the function then returning and rechecking "messages".

Search for folders?

I know how to search for jpegs or documents by a file name but what about a name of a folder? thanks in advance

If you do a search in Spotlight it should find the names of folders as well as files. You don't mention what version of the operating system you have so I can't tell if you have Spotlight available. The icon would be in your menubar at the top right corner of your screen and it looks like a magnifying glass.
Best of luck.

Searching for Folders

Even though apps get catalogued in folders; I still have a doozy of a time finding the folder I want with 9 pages of stuff; it would be great if spotlight could search for a specific folder name; or is there already a way to do this in search....?

These are user-to-user forums, you are not talking to Apple here and they do not monitor these forums. If you want to leave feedback for Apple then you can do so here : http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

Spotlight Search for 0KB Images?

I'm having a big problem with my iPhoto Library.
Is there a way for me to search for 0KB images in an iPhoto Library (say after I do a Show Package Contents)?
If so, I'd love to get specific instructions on how to do this. Also, if there is a Spotlight Forum please direct me to it as I could not find it.
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Or try Find Any File . I find Spotlight searches overly complex and limited.
-mj

How to use the spotlight search for photos imported onto an apple ipod model MB528BT

I have an apple ipod model MB528BT version 4.2.1 (8C148) Im think its an iPod touch as opposed to the old iPod but cannot be certain. So first of all does this model number mean anything and/or can I confirm myself via the unit itself?
Assuming its an iPod Touch my question is :-
I have copied photos from a dvd I purchased for identifying birds onto my iMac which I readily search via spotlight.
Having downloaded these photos onto my ipod when I conduct a spotlight search it only finds the birdsong but not the image! Cannot get into settings for spotlight to set for images. If of course this is the answer.
Anyone know the answer please!
Thanks David

"also i use imessage alot so when somebody sends a message who will get it the ipad or the ipod?"
Both
You can sync as many ipods/ipads/iphones as you like to one computer.

Spotlight search for Address Book contact results in import query?

This bug is happening frequently lately, wheby I perform a Spotlight seach for a contact that is in my Address Book, and then when I select the contact in the search results, Address Book is selected and the app asks me "Are you sure you want to import 1 card?"
Anybody ever see this problem or how to resolve it?
Thanks.

Peter, that is not a solution -- try selecting the same contact again from spotlight and you'll get the same "Import" dialog box, asking you what you want to do.
The expected behavior from Address Book is to open the existing contact.
No other application does this from Spotlight that I'm aware of, and after 7 years of OS X, this is still very, very annoying.
I wish there were a fix -- I'm activley looking and will report back.

Cannot Spotlight search for term: (1)

I'm trying to search for all files that contain "(1)" (without the quotes) in the filename. However when I type (1) into the search field, nothing shows up. (I know I have hundreds of these files named this way)
How can I find these files? I'm assuming there is something special about parentheses that exclude it from being searched, right?

Peter, that is not a solution -- try selecting the same contact again from spotlight and you'll get the same "Import" dialog box, asking you what you want to do.
The expected behavior from Address Book is to open the existing contact.
No other application does this from Spotlight that I'm aware of, and after 7 years of OS X, this is still very, very annoying.
I wish there were a fix -- I'm activley looking and will report back.

Enabling Spotlight search for server clients?

I have a mac mini server running OSX Mavericks, and 6 client mac also running Mavericks.
The server provides access to the main storage raid for our design dept, and all the designers need to be able to search for files on this server, but Spotlight never seems to work when trying to search the server.
No of us are It types, so the few possible solutions i have found seem to be aimed at advanced unix programmers, and as a result assume that a single line of code is enough of a hint for us to sort out the problem!
Pleae can someone explain how i can set up the server to index the raid, and allow the users to perform searches?
thanks
adam

It used to be that you could manually enable and disable spotlight indexing for network shares on a Mac server. With Server.app and therefore your Macvericks server this is automatically enabled. The process would be along the following lines.
You have a drive which has permissions enabled, external drives may default to having this turned off you can if needed enable it by doing a 'Get Info' on the external drive, and at the bottom will be an option 'Ignore ownership on this volume' this needs to be turned off i.e. unticked.
You then tell Server.app to 'share' the volume or a folder within the volume.
Server.app will automatically enable both AFP and SMB sharing for this new share, you can modify this if you wish.
Server.app will also automatically add an ACL (Access Control List) record containing the special server account 'Spotlight' so it can access every single file and folder within the share, this lets the server spotlight indexing software be able to access and therefore index all those files.
Client Macs can then search the share, it should only return results of files that that user has permission to access.
There is nothing really to configure. I have seen problems where the server will periodically decide to re-index the share again and while it is doing this searching does not work because the server is busy rebuilding the index. You can tell if this is happening by clicking on the Spotlight menu on the server, if it says it is re-indexing then this is what is happening.

Spotlight search for emails outside of iMail

Hi all,
By default, spotlight searches in iMail. I use another email client (Airmail) and I would like to include it in spotlight searches. Is that possible?
Thanks

I have just found this on MacWorlds site...
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/11/15/spotlightanlaysis/index.php
Spotty Symbol Searches Spotlight’s handling of non-alphanumeric characters is quite strange. Try searching for a dollar value you know you’ve got in some file, for instance. When I searched for $150, I got matches for all files that contained 150, but not necessarily the dollar sign. Similarly, I was looking for a piece of Unix code that I knew contained %i. So I searched on that term, and Spotlight found 99,271 matches, only a couple of which had the %i string I was looking for. So maybe Spotlight just ignores the non-alphanumeric characters?
That doesn’t seem to be the case at all, as a search for just i found 298,436 matches (and took a long time to run!). So just what’s happening here? If it’s ignoring the non-alphanumeric characters, I should have seen the same number of matches in both searches. But I didn’t, so what exactly is it doing with them?
Has anyone found a workaround for this?
Thanks,
Ivan

Spotlight search for TEXT?

Still on 10.4.9...
I try searching for a certain WORD within my many documents, but Spotlight can only find the NAMES of files, not WORDS WITHIN the files, at least none within any of my QuarkXpress files...
I also try Finder>Find, Use the MINUS button to delete all the other criteria, and change the default button from KIND to CONTENTS and type in the word I am looking for... There are no Quark files on the list, even though the Quark document is now actually opened and the certain word I'm looking for is right there...
Could it be that Spotlight or the Find function do not look into QuarkXpress documents? Or other documents like MSWord?

Content searches should work with MS Word, but not sure about QuarkXpress.
You might have luck if you install the QuarkXpress Filter for Spotlight at the bottom of this page:
http://euro.quark.com/en/products/xpress/xtensions/quark_xt.html

Spotlight search for telephon numbers

Hello,
I am using the search field inside the addressbook.app to type in a telephon number of an existing contact.
Unfortunately no results are shown for contacts which having the number.
Ist it possible to search for telephon numbers of my contacts in the addressbook.app?
Thanks
Japday

I'm able to search for phone numbers successfully while in the Address Book. I also used Spotlight outside of the Address Book to retrieve the information Perhaps you need to rebuild your index.
Jim

Spotlight search for email

If I do a spotlight search (IOS7.02) on a phrase I get a hit on an email but I cannot find this email in any of my accounts - inboxes, sent or trash. Any ideas?

I have the same issue. Just received a new MacBook Air with our Corporate image on it. I recovered my old data onto it and setup Outlook 2011 and Mail but Spotlight doesn't search in either one anymore. On my old MacBook with Mountain Lion on it, it worked just fine. I've tried the suggestions of deleting the index files using the Terminal app and I tried the adding and deleting the HD in Privacy settings in Spotlight Preferences and rebooting, but still nothing.
Help please. Driving me crazy not being able to search for old emails.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Spotlight searching for mailing list archives

I need to make spotlight searches available for individual Mailman/Pipermail mailing lists' web archives. How can I do it? So far, the only way I've found is to make a copy of the mailing list's web archives somewhere inside a web site's hierarchy, then add indexing for it with the mdimport -f command. Simply using a symbolic link to a mailing list archve folder in /private/var/mailman/archives/private doesn't work. I don't want to keep a separate copy of the mailing list archives just so that I can have one that's spotlight searchable.
Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I can browse to the iPhoto Library in the Open dialogues from other apps. For some apps (eg Safari, Word), I can see the iPhoto Library, but it is greyed out
That's not what I mean. You're browsing to the Library, I mean +browse the contents of the Library+...
For instance: Consider the Open... Dialogue
On the left there's a Media heading, the contents of your Library can be accessed there.
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
(Note the above illustration is not a Finder Window. It's the dialogue you get when you go File -> Open)
Is your Library available there? And in other Media Broswers in Pages, iMovie etc?
Regards
TD

Spotlight search for folders

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