Spotlight/search weirdness

Since I got my MBP I have transferred a bunch of files. When I search, both via finder-window and Spotlight--it acts as if those files do not exist. Doesn't see them. Nada. This is strange. Any thoughts? Can I execute indexing of these files?

i seem to have the same problem with spotlight as you. i recently used migration assistant to transfer files from my ibook to my new macbook. spotlight is not locating music files that i can find in the finder. another problem im having is with picture files in the finder. iphoto files and picures are not showing when i look for them in the finder-ie:when using email iphoto files are not there. maybe you can run me through what you did, and ill try it. thanks alot.

Similar Messages

Iphoto Library is locked AND spotlight search stops working

This has been happening for several months.
a restart of my Mac Pro temporarily fixies it for a few days but then it happens again
I have read many threads on the iphoto locked library issue and I have tried all of the suggestions except for the download iphoto library manager.
I don't want to do that uless I have to, and because of the issue with spotlight, I think that it won't be a permanents fix
I don't know if the spotlight search issue is causing the iphoto lock or visa versa, or if there is another thing causeing both,
but after experiencing this problem many times I know that both issues happen a the same time and must be linked in some way.
restarting the mac pro (intel Xeon Dual Core os 10.7.5) solves the problem temporarily. both iphoto and spotligh search work fine after that until the next time.
I don't know what triggers it. and it's really frustrating because I don't understand how the os works and I really need to be able to use the search function for work. I need to be able to search my emails and files and it just doesn't give results except for older files and emails when this happens. the more recent files and emails are either not indexed or not coming up for some reason
my iphoto library is on a seperate drive from my operating system and it is formatted extended journaled and set to ignore permissions
I have tried deleting the iphtotlockdata file but when I do that and try to start iphoto I get a weird message saying
"the library "iphoto library" is open in iphoto. to open this library in iphoto you must quit iphoto."
I've rebuilt the iphoto library before (after restarting) but eventually the problem happens again.
not sure what else to try
thanks in advance for your help

aOne thing that I forgot to add is that I can never just restart or shutdown my computer
It always gets stuck on the grey screen at shutdown and will stay there forever if you let it. I always have to hole the power button to force it off.
Boot into Safe Mode, Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode. and then reboot normally. That will run a number of repair routines and might fix the shut down issue.
I second Terene's suggestion of using iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library.
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

I have a iPad 4 on iOS 7.0.4 and every time I go to the spotlight search my iPad would respring just after typing in one letter in the spotlight search bar and it keeps d..please help I have to give this iPad to my grandma for her birthday on January 6

It would respring after typing in one letter at the spotlight search bar...how do I get rid of this...I have noticed this change about 1 day ago

You will need to look elsewhere
Jaigosh00 wrote:
... I think my cousin jailbroke the iPad without my knowing because there is a weird icon that says Cydia...
Sorry... But...
The discussion of Jailbroken Devices is against the Terms of Use of this Forum.
Unauthorized modification of iOS > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743

Spotlight search bar and dual monitors

Does anyone know of a way to move the Spotlight search box (command-space bar)? I run dual 24" motors and it comes up right in the middle so there is a nasty gap between the two monitors due to the bezel. This is certainly an annoyance that I would like to fix.

You will need to look elsewhere
Jaigosh00 wrote:
... I think my cousin jailbroke the iPad without my knowing because there is a weird icon that says Cydia...
Sorry... But...
The discussion of Jailbroken Devices is against the Terms of Use of this Forum.
Unauthorized modification of iOS > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743

Help! On the new iOS 7 I can't find spotlight search!

Help! On the new iOS 7 I can't find spotlight search!

Then you are swiping too close to the top of the screen.
Spotlight Search

I accidentally quit my CC on my Macbook pro and now the cloud icon is grayed out and every time I hover over it with the mouse I get the spinning beach ball of death on the icon. I have no idea how to open it because when I use spotlight search to open it

I accidentally quit my CC on my Macbook pro and now the cloud icon is grayed out and every time I hover over it with the mouse I get the spinning beach ball of death on the icon. I have no idea how to open it because when I use spotlight search to open it it gives me a message saying "Creative Cloud is not open anymore" help!

Since you didn't include any pertinent info such as the Mac model and OS version you are running, here is some general information:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Depending on which OS yours came with originally - and which OS you are now running - you would either need your original install disks - you can call Apple for replacements by giving them your serial number. Or you may be able to reinstall the OS by using recovery (again, depends on which model/which OS).

Why is my spotlight search slow/unresponsive in IOS 7... specifically when I start the search with the letters "n" or "c".

I have an iPhone 5 that must be just over a year old now. I don't remember exactly when this problem started, but I think it was right after updating to IOS 7. The problem is that with certain searches, such as "chrome" or "calender", the spotlight search will basically do nothing. It is somewhat random. Sometimes it will work imidiatly as I am typing it like it usually did. But other times, I will write out the whole word, press search, and still nothing will come up.
As I was just testing it now, I came up with an interesting discovery. I tested every letter of the alphabet and while 24 of them immidiatly worked fine like usual, it was actually only searches that started with "n" or "c" that did not work. Perhaps the reason I noticed this so much is because some of the apps I use all the time are Chrome, Calender, Notes, Contacts, Calculator, Clock, Camera (wow- just realized how many apps started with "c"!).
While in spotlight, if I type in C or N and then delete it and try to type another letter that would work normally, it does not work. So if I type in N and then delete it and type in A, A will not come up with results like it would if I just started with A. But if I close and reopend spotlight search and then type in A, it works fine.
When spotlight search is unresponsive if I wait for about a min sometimes results will actually come up, other times it will sort of crash (it will just randomly close before any results came up).
I could go on and on with the little details concerning this problem but I do not know what info would/would not be useful to you guys. I have tried restoring my phone from a backup and nothing changed. I am updated to the most recent version. My phone has never been jailbroken and otherwise is in perfect shape.
Thanks for reading,
Matt

I've seen this happen before, and generally turning off Documents and Data in Settings > iCloud will fix it.
If that doesn't work, try the following.
1. Restart the phone and check it out.
2. Reset the phone (hold the home button and the lock button until you see an Apple Logo and then let them go).
3. Go into Settings > General > Reset > Reset all Settings and test it out again
4. If none of the above work, try creating either an iTunes backup or an iCloud backup and restore the device as new using iTunes. Here's an article to help with that: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4137

Mail+Spotlight Search Not Working in Lion

I've been dealing with this problem for over a month and have not been able to fix it. Search works fine in Lion on several computers, but on my laptop it still won't do a complete search. It will only pull up emails from people in my contacts list..... no subject key word searches or people outside my contacts searches..... very frustrating! The searches also don't work in Spotlight, so I can't use spotlight as a backup.
I've tried rebuilding my mailbox.... deleting and recreating the account.... tossing out the Envelope Index folders in the Mail library... Deleting and re installing my search window, etc...... I see lot's of other people with the same issue. It's frustrating when your running your business on your computer and have to deal with a flaw in a new OS..... it was working fine in Leopard..... whats up APPLE? Please help!
Other Info:
Macbook Pro 2008 Version with 2.5 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Running 10.7.4

Glenn,
Regarding adding and deleting the System Drive from the Spotlight Privacy Tab...... I'm following your sequence, but when I come back to Spotlight Search in the menu bar it just works the same.... no mention of indexing. What's interesting is that "Mail" dosn't appear anywhere in search results when a keyword search is performed via spotlight.
Regarding the "enevelope Index Files" ..... I followed the instructions and quit and re-opened mail as instructed. When I re-opened Mail I selected "continue" and the program began to index the contents of mail for about 30 minutes. I thought that would would fix the issue, but it's still not working.
I've tried to compare the account setup from my IMAC which works fine to see if I have something setup wrong in the account, but everything looks the same.
I guess I can try to re-index again? Don't know what else to do?
Thanks,
Bill

Password protecting mail app and permanent deletion of emails so they don't appear in spotlight search

I realise that there is a temporary way to prevent this happening by unticking the 'mail' option in the spotlight search settings menu, but how do you permanently delete the emails? I assumed that when I hit delete then emptied the trash box, the mails were gone for good. But finding that they remain stored in some hidden place and can be easily accessed is very annoying! In fact, finding that other users can quickly change the settings back and have free access to my email is rather disturbing anyway, especially as there is no way to password protect my email account once i activate the mail app. the apple mail app is linked to my yahoo account, but within yahoo mail there seems to be no problem in regards to deleted mail being stored somewhere else, only within the apple app system.
So i guess id like to know, is there some way to password protect my account or do I just need to keep deleting my account before lending the ipad to someone else and then reinstating it? And is there any way to properly delete emails for good?
I would be happy just to go without the mail app and log in directly through yahoo in Safari, except that I find the notification alert when I receive a new mail very handy!!

[edit] I dragged the email I sent through the MBP Mail app (under MAILBOXES > Sent > Yahoo!) to the highlighted Sent folder (YAHOO! > Sent), and now it shows up on all Yahoo Sent folders (iPad app, web browser, phone app). Not entirely solved the issue but will use web browser to sent future emails to keep everything in sync.

Spotlight search doesn't include my email - should it?

Sorry but I am a newbie running Lion
I can search in the Mail app and find the email I am looking for (I have a Gmail IMAP account setup)
When I search using the spotlight app however, it is not searching for email
My questions is - should I be able to find emails in the spotlight search app?
Sorry if this is known by all
I did a clean install of Lion on a 2010 27" iMac
thanks
Mark

I just did a test and Spotlight found my Gmail messages.
Go to Ststem Preferences/Spotlight and be sure you have "Messages and Chats" selected. Also in Privacy, make sure you don't Gmail set to be excluded.

Lost all my built in apps on my Iphone3GS, i have checked restrictions and spotlight search and i do not have phone,imessage,or appstore apps anymore,please help me!

Lost my phone,imessage,and app store apps and when i try to restore it,its still showing up like this,i have checked restrictions and spotlight search but still no luck,please help!

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Home Screen Layout

Can't see location of item with long name in Spotlight search?

I can find the location of an item in a Spotlight search by selecting it and holding down the Command key, whereupon its position is displayed at the bottom of the Spotlight window.
However, if the item has a long name, the location is "offscreen" as shown in the screenshot below.
Is there any way of displaying it?

Somebody in another forum told me it couldn't be done in Spotlight but the word "no" must have kick-started my stubborn streak and I started hitting every other key I could find whilst holding down the command key to keep the incomplete location revealed.
Eventually I struck lucky when I pressed Return (or Enter) . . . the window below opened and I was able to do a "Get Info" on the item to find its exact location.

Possible to disable iPhone Spotlight Search page?

I understand a lot of people use the Spotlight search feature on their iPhones to launch apps, find documents, songs and whatever.
Personally I have no need for it as I only use a very few basic apps, no documents and 2 playlists.
What I would like to do is disable that 'page' completely as I accidentally swipe to it every week or so and then have to swipe back to find what I was looking for. Just trying to make things a bit less annoying. A quick internet search of this issue found a fair number of people in the same situation.
Note: I've already set double-tapping the Home button brings up my few favourite phone numbers. I'm guessing someone will read the topic title, glance at the post and reply with "duh, just change the double-tap home button settings lol".

There is no way to disable the search page unless you jailbreak. Even then, I'm not familiar with an app that does what you are looking for. Sorry...

Spotlight search top hits problems in iphone 5 ios 6

I upgraded from Iphone 4s ios 5.1.1 to Iphone 5 ios 6.02 yesterday. (Att to verizon, but not relevant to this post)
On first glance at spotlight search on new iphone 5, I thought for sure the index for my spotlight search was totally corrupt. If I start typing 'Hol' for holly, after h or o she should come up as a top hit...instead my top hit is Chris Luxxxx (nothing to do with H or O)...I keep typing...top hit area totally disappears and Holly xxxx shows in middle of very long list of what would appear to be totally unrelated contacts. I have to get to Holly Bo before the list is down to 4 names...and 3 of those aren't related to her (on the surface....)....and top hits still doesn't pop up?? I still had my 4s next to me...and the results were night and day different...and the iphone 5 were so totally irrelevant compared to the 4s for what I was trying to do (just look up a contact...the thing i use spotlight search for most!?!?)
NOTE:
1) At this point, I had already disabled all categories but 'contacts for my spotlight search to minimize the hundreds matches I was getting in all kinds of categories that looked irrelevant......and to focus on what was going on with my contacts.
2) My contacts are synched with MS Exchange config connected to google apps account
3) I have about 1500 contacts and 1700 other contacts (email addresses only), and TONS of notes in contact 'comments' fields (foreshadowing here....'comments' fields....)
After about 60 minutes of thinking the index for my records was corrupt...and reboots and resets and internet searches..I tried thinking differently....and I started looking at the 'comments' fields in my contacts...and whoooaaaa....arghhhhh...
It appears spotlight is now indexing 'comments' section of contacts now as well many other fields in the contact records that I don't believe were previously indexed.........and apple is NOT not prioritizing the results by any fields (like giving first name, last name, business name top hit result priority)....and I know for a fact it did not use index notes..because i needed that function so I downloaded an app to do that....I found the fact that it did not index 'comments' section annoying, but tolerable...now they they are indexing it, but with poor implementation and no prioritization, spotlight has become a great tool for locating **** near anything on my phone...but a really crappy short cut to get to the contacts I wanted to get to....a better implementation of prioritization of 'top hits' would go a long ways...
Back to my searches again....when I searched 'Ho'.........Chris Luxxxis showed up first as a 'top hit'....made no sense at all....but this is what I pieced together.....e he was the most recent phone call I made, and 'ho' is in the 'comments' section of his contact info 6 times........in the words home, home inspector, house masters, house password.....arghhhhh.....I did a lot more searches...and made some phone calls, and when I ran same search again....Chris Luxxxx was not longer an immediate top hit!?!? ****...I don't need a short cut to recent calls in my top hits spotlight search!?!? It's not the magic genie!!!! And when applied like that..it just makes a huge bowl of spaghetti!!
I thought...okay...well, overall it's a better tool for finding EVERYTHING on my phone, just crappier for shortcutting to contacts to make calls and send emails....(i never used the contacts section of my phone on 4s for 3 years...just used spotlight, and it was awesome, easy and fast and got me to my contacts better than any other search system on any device i'd ever had).......So I thought.....ok so maybe I'll just have to used my contacts area more now to get to my contacts........and guess what...it appears the same darn alogrythim for search results there!!!
Apple has obliterated the concept of top hits in spotlight search..and made finding the common items in the phone like contacts a heck of a lot more typing....I only have 1 Holly in my contacts....and I have to type 'Holly Bow' before she is the sole contact shown...and I have to get to 'Holly B' before the list is down to 15 results....oh....but if I recall this issue and start with her last name...only need to get three letters in to find her...unfortunately, but its individuall relevent...ie another contacts last name is a bomb for searching, but first is quick....
Apple use to think for their users...they assumed what was most important given a spot in an application...and overall, made some decent decisions for the non technically oriented....(personally, I didn't like it...been a pc guy for 20 years..and a programmer...drove me nuts, but had a place for their customer base and nice if what you did with your computer was inline with the applications apple designed their machines to be great at....)...and I loved my iphone 4s compared to too many config options and poor implementation on windows phones ...and i'm still an iphone fan...for it's simplicity and lack of total cusomization actually (i get my creative juices flowing doing things other than customizing smart phones)........but in this case, too much info can be as bad or worse than not enough if you don't include some controls to start limiting relevance somehow....
I'm 90 minutes into this...guess now that I seem to have concluded what's up...I can start working with it or around it...but it's a big departure for where spotlight was...and while it offers more...for me, it's offering a lot less for my hourly and daily needs.
If my assumptions about these changes are wrong or anyones figured out how to get top hits useful again, please advise.
thx

Try at total shut down of Safari, double click on the home button then find the Safari app, hold you finger on the app for a few secs then tap the red minus sign to close the app. Re-launch Safari then give it a try.

When importing a cd on to itunes where is the original file kept because my itunes folder doesn't have it, the song does come up when i spotlight search it but i can't locate it

i cannot seem to find where the original file for tracks that have been imported from a cd are kept because they are not in the itunes folder, however the song is somewhere as it does show up on spotlight search and plays when i click it. where would i find it?!

It will be in the iTunes media folder location shown in iTunes prefs > Advanced.
Select the song, right click > Show file in Finder.

Spotlight/search weirdness

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