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Spotlight find/show invisible files
I use EasyFind donate-ware to search for and show invisible files and folders, but it would be more convenient if Tiger and Leopard Spotlight searches would give the user the option to do this.
Respectfully, Norm |
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I simply use locate in the terminal when I'm after a .hidden file, but it certainly would be helpful to include those for spotlight indexing. |
I hope for that option too.
I tend to use Windows Remote Desktop to search for hidden files on my Mac. It's completely backasswards, but for some reason I prefer this method. |
I'm just curious - but what are these invisible files that you are needing to search for?
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Hayne, I forgot what invisible files but I do such searches several times a year. Today I was looking for PithHelmet.log to see if it had grown significantly. It's NOT an invisible file; it just didn't show up in a Spotlight search. But when I ran EasyFind, I was reminded that the donate-ware app is in my dock because of its invisible-file capability.
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I just use the Finder's Find command (I assume that is driven by Spotlight) and use the Visibility criterion.
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In EasyFind, .trashes was displayed as found and last modified June 18, 2006, but my Finder Spotlight search came up empty. :confused: Respectfully, Norm |
That's what's so weird. Finder Find does it but Spotlight doesn't. Maybe somebody who knows the Spotlight query language can make it work in Spotlight itself?
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Is it perhaps a folder that is designated out of reach for Spotlight? I think it might also be possible for a developer to specify that the files of its application should not be indexed by Spotlight. (e.g. this might be desirable if the files are changing frequently) |
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Maybe you should ask the PithHelmet developers about this. |
I just tried searching for a few items in my /Library/Application Support folder and none of them turned up in a Spotlight search under 10.4.5.
I suspect that Apple has been tweaking it and there are different folders excluded in different versions of the OS. This is a list of Spotlight excluded folders that I saved for personal reference. It's not completely accurate -- for some reason, Spotlight may index some of those folders on some Macs and there may be other folders that it doesn't index. As I recall, there are at least 2 .plist files that control whether Spotlight will index a given folder and I'm not sure what happens if there are conflicts between the two. /Desktop /Documents /Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/MetaData /Library/Mail /Music /Movies /Pictures /Library/Caches/Metadata /Library/Fonts /Library/Internet Plug-Ins /Library/Metadata /Library/Preferences /Library/PreferencePanes /Library/Screen Savers /Library/Spotlight /Library/Widgets /Library/Caches /Library/Printers /Applications /Users/Shared /System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app /System/Library/Fonts /System/Library/PreferencePanes /Users /AppleInternal/Library /Developer/ADC Reference Library /Developer/Documentation /Previous Systems.localized /Network /Volumes /private /tmp /var /etc /usr /bin /sbin /dev /automount /cores /mach.sym /iPod_Control /System Folder /Classic /System/System Folder /Classic System Folder 9.2.2 |
Doing the broadest search possible for invisible items, using the Finder's find feature, and trying every search location such as Computer and Home, I get ZERO results. Kind>any, visiblity>invisible. I'm using 10.4.6 and only exclude one or two small folders from Spotlight indexing. I'm sure it's been like this since at least 10.4.3. |
I could be wrong ThreeBKKK, but it only looks for files you've chosen to make invisible.
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Okay, perhaps that's the case solipsism. It's not extremely useful that way though. |
Using Spotlight I can find .trash, but that's the only invisible file it would find out of about 10 that I tried. Finder's find also shows .trash, but only if I specifically type "trash". Otherwise it won't show it. |
Just speculation, but Apple has a strong history of knowing what is best for the user. In most cases they are correct, but it would be nice for power users to access these things without having to use 3-rd party programs. Hopefully, Spotlight in Leopard will allow for more options, or perhaps even a simple hack that will not overlook all but the .trash files.
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FWIW, showing invisible files appears to be one of the capabilities of Spotlight, if someone has the savvy to figure out the syntax. All the metadata attributes used by Spotlight, including invisibles, are listed here:http://developer.apple.com/documenta...mmonAttrs.html
I have no idea how to use this information, but there you are anyway. |
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spotlight and hidden files
I downloaded the game "Rocks N' Diamonds." The author had put the default levels in a a hidden directory called .rocksndiamonds. When I went to upgrade to the newest version, I wanted to keep the levels I had created within this hidden directory. I eventually had to contact the author to find out about the location of this directory (the only one that did not show up in the menu when you loaded the different sets of levels). I had a horrible time, before i wrote him, trying to locate my levels on the HD because they were in a hidden directory. therefore i would like to know if there is some way to make Spotlight locate hidden files and/or directories?
Lee |
You'll need to use Terminal.app or DL a 3rd-party app.
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