is it me, or is leopard spotlight just lame?
 

i needed to trash my firefox prefs, but couldn't remember the exact name of the document (org.mozilla.firefox.plist). so i typed "firefox" in spotlight.

a few results -- the app, etc., -- but absolutely no preference files. i double-checked: i was searching "this computer." it defaults to "contents," so i switched to "file name" -- but still nothing.

finally i went to the preferences folder and scanned for the document manually -- and found it.

if i'm searching "this computer," and spotlight doesn't "see" a document that's sitting right there -- how can this be the correct behavior? i *know* i was able to find preference files with spotlight in tiger.

what am i missing, here??

I ran into the same thing. I was looking for Mail's .plist and it wouldn't show up at all! And, what's worse, I couldn't find it when I went to look for it manually...no idea where that thing is now.

I have files with some word in the name, and Spotlight never heard of it. I wish I could just remove the icon from the menubar and save reale state.

No problems here.

Mail's preference file hasn't gone anywhere, either.

I noticed the other day that Spotlight searches were ignoring plist files on my machine too. I've not found a solution to it yet.

No .plist Spotlight search results here, with very few exceptions.

Is there some reason you have to search for preference files so much that they HAVE to show up in Spotlight? Seems like omitting that kind of thing would speed up search results.

Surely there are better solutions for whatever you're trying to do.

Criticizing one's need to search for particular items is unhelpful, irrational, and ridiculous. The fact is -- Spotlight is not working properly, as several in this thread have confirmed. Your opinions regarding the types of items for which we need to search (and why) are irrelevant to the discussion and amount to nothing but "noise."

For the benefit of those who are (rightfully) troubled by Spotlight's inadequacies, I've turned, for now, to FileSpot:

http://mac.synthesisstudios.com/mac/filespot/about

Get off your horse. I asked a perfectly reasonable question regarding the higher-level goal that seems to be fanning this thread.

The fact is actually that people aren't seeing results returned for .plist files that are normally in ~/Library/Preferences.

But if you want to know, Spotlight's menubar UI in Leopard intentionally simply does not search some areas of the system. This is probably a method of returning more-likely-to-be-relevant results faster than in Tiger, because there are a ton of places 99% of people simply never need to search inside (say, items in Preferences that tend to be binary .plist files, which is why I asked in the first place). If you navigate to the Preferences folder and search just in there via Finder, you will notice that you can return results for items in the Preferences folder. Gasp!

It very well could be a bug, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is one. It does seem rather designed this way, since you're still able to find these things if you're a person who absolutely needs to. Everyone else, it keeps things out of the way.

Spotlight is the touchy feely GUI based search that only looks for certain file types in certain places. It's somewhat useful but when you are trying to do more serious things to your system you should use a better tool. Spotlight doesn't search any of the standard unix directories (/usr, /etc, /var for example) so for example if I wanted to know if the SMART drive monitoring tools are installed in leopard spotlight doesn't know.

But "locate" is installed and is much more useful for the sorts of things you want to do. On my machine, I opened terminal and typed:

locate org.mozilla.firefox.plist

It came back with the location of the only copy of that file I've got on my machine (I use camino): /Users/hallie/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist

Not only does locate know about ALL my files, but it also returns the answers much much (did I mention much?) faster.

There's a world of goodness under the GUI, and it's patiently waiting for you.


Sheldon

Interesting.

Spotlight returned 7 .plist files.

Easyfind returned 4079.

wow, easyfind seems great! thanks! spotlight was driving me batty. i jus switched to mac full time at work and while i love most everything, this spotlight stuff was getting on my last nerve.

Glad to be of assistance - shame I can't credit the bloke who recommended EF to me. I just don't remember. So thanks mate!, whoever you are.:o

More English humour?

You have to click "+" after doing a search...then under "kind" select "other"...then select the files you want included in the search (system files, plst). Then the next time you run spotlight click "kind" and select "system files" and "show".

The purpose of this is the ability to search only what you want instead of getting thousands of hits and trying to manage them by clicking and finding out where they are located.

Wow, that feature was really buried. Even after reading your description, I had a hard time figuring out where to find it. The way that it is implemented is not as intuitive as other Apple GUI elements. Hopefully, they'll figure out a way to make it clearer in the near future.

Did you find that by poking around, or did you read up on it in the Apple support documentation?

I did some poking around and active searching in various forums because I was faced with the same issue of not being able to find system files.

Thanks for your help. I really do appreciate it.... However, the steps weren't all clear....

So *after* I do a search in "little Spotlight," which doesn't find what I want, I take it you mean to arrow up to "Show All" to open the larger window. Then...

Well, there is no "kind" unless I click the "plus" sign to the right of "save." So, assuming that's what you meant, I select "other," then...

You say "select," as if there's a list. But next to "kind" and "other," I see an empty box. So now I have to manually enter the types of "other" files I want Spotlight to find? What if the user doesn't know the exact file type? Doesn't this defeat the very purpose of the Spotlight feature? But ok.... Unfortunately, when I type "system" or "plist," nothing happens. I know files exist of these types, so does the user have to know the exact nomenclature for the various file types?

"The next time"??? So the steps I just went through don't help me find anything this time? I'm not trying to be funny, but I'm following each step, as described, and now, this step says "The next time you run Spotlight...." I don't understand.

Well I don't think I ever got "thousands" of hits in Tiger; yet in Tiger, anytime I searched for something in "little Spotlight," I found what I needed. Sometimes I had to open the big window, but ultimately I always found what I needed.

In Leopard, I almost never find what I need. I'm sorry, but the "new" Spotlight is simply not an improvement, by any stretch of the imagination. My frustration is not directed toward you, Bear Hunter, it's directed toward Apple for this ridiculous, retrograde functionality.

1. Open finder and conduct a search
2. After you get some results..click on the "+" next to the save button
3. Click the drop down menu that says "kind"
4. Select "other"
5. A window will open with a list of attributes you can select
6. Put a check in the box next to the types of files you want included. In this case it will be "system files"
7. Move over to the next drop down menu to the right. Change "don't include" to "include"
8. The Finder will automatically populate with the system files that match your search criteria.

The next time you perform a search you will have a list of preferred attributes to select from the "+" sign since you selected them as described above:

1. Press the "+" sign next to "save"
2. Use the drop down menu that says "kind"
3. Since you already put a check mark on system files...just select "system files" from the drop down menu...no need to go to "other"
4. Go to the drop down menu to the right and click "include"


That's it

That's really just one step... since there's no need to wait until "after".
Just set up the search, and ignore intermediate results as they're scrolling by.
At least Leopard moves quickly. In the beginning, Tiger used to choke
and SWOD if we typed more than one letter. [remember how 10.4.0 was?
we had to paste the entire word, or wait half-a-minute while it searched,
before typing the next letter!]

--

Actually... even more complex searches can be configured, by *option*-clicking the (+).
See this Macworld article: "Add conditions to Finder searches". (I forget who wrote it ;))

-HI-

Spotlight was likely showing those .plist files because they were located outside of the library/preferences folder. If they are in a location considered to be "System files" then you'll need to use the aforementioned technique.

Great info Halitosis, especially about option-clicking the + button to get extra filtering options.

Update: I just realized that Spotlight will find all .plist files without adding the "System files" criteria, but only if you ask it to look in the ~/Library/Preferences folder. In other words, navigate to the folder that you want to search first, then type keywords into the search field in the Finder window.

Now that I'm starting to understand the nuances of it, I can see that it is more mature than Tiger's search functions. I like it.