Reader Robert and I have the same problem. Or, well, at least a same problem; I’m sure I’ve got a spate of others that Robert doesn’t share. But when it comes to Spotlight searching in Leopard, we’re both pretty irked.
Why? Simple. Let me render you a real-world representation: there you are, looking for that one file in a folder of hundreds. You’re pretty sure you remember the name, but you can’t quite find it. So you click in the search field that’s at at the top of every Finder window and type the name of the file in.
But, for reasons beknownst only to some esoteric engineers at Apple, instead of politely filtering the contents of that folder and returning to you only the matches (as, say, iTunes does), it automatically launches a full-blown Spotlight search for every file on your Mac with those terms in the contents. Which is kind of like calling in the FBI to help you find your keys somewhere in your house.
I wish I had a fix for this: I truly do. The closest I can offer is that if you hold down shift and go to the File menu, you’ll see an option for “Find by Name…” (you can hit command-shift-F too). Leopard will rather asininely open a new Finder window in which it may look at first like Contents/This Mac are selected, but it will also add a “Name contains” field and default the cursor there.
It’d be nice if it remembered your previous settings, or even somehow let you determine what the default search criteria is. If anybody out there has any suggestions for fixing this, let us known and solve one of Robert’s and my many problems.
Woah. Same problem here as well. It's really annoying.
I'm not at my Mac at the moment to double check, but can't you type this in Spotlight?
name:
This is one of the greatest annoyances of Spotlight and Mac search in general.
I use BBEdit for most find-by-content searches. BBEdit lets me target a particular folder, lets me use regex, lets me filter by file suffix, and automatically skips folders whose name is bounded by parentheses like (Archive). Plus, I can do replacements, which is often the next step after doing a find.
If I'm looking for an email message I'll launch my mail program. If I'm searching for something in a PDF I'll do the search in preview. I very rarely can't remember if the term I'm searching for is an email message, a preference pane, or an excel document and need to search all those types of files.
When I'm searching in the Finder nine searches out of ten I want find-by-name. Leopard is a little better in this respect than Tiger, but still obfuscates the find-by-name option more than it should.
I like the Command-Shift-F shortcut and will use that all the time.
I am a little amused that it doesn't just switch the search field from Contents to File Name and instead creates an extended search option for File Name. It doesn't seem like the teams who worked on these features collaborated very well.
Amen to that. Apple's Spotlight search was a great concept with a hugely disappointmenting implementation in Tiger. This could have been forgiven as Apple's first effort in creating a dynamic content and metadata search engine at the OS level.
Thus, it is doubly frustrating to see how things have not changed- no, gone backwards in Leopard.
The problems go beyond what you've mentioned here. What if you want to search on a file and there are multiple copies? And you want to open the larger file. The file size column is gone, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get it back. Search result windows should have the same range of display options as any other Finder window. Why it doesn't isn't explained and hugely hobbles the usefulness of any search.
What if you want to find all files with a certain string in the path name? Nup.
What if you want to search multiple, specified subdirectories in one go. You could in Tiger (click "Other..." and drag and tick. Voila). Now, under Leopard, you can ONLY search the whole frigging computer OR your local account.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb!
I use “Namely” to search for file names. Its free and works well.
Through my entire use of Leopard, this has been the greatest annoyance. I have yet to search in a Finder window and NOT select "name" and "this folder only". You'd think it would recognize that.
Namely only finds application. Sorry about my previous post.
There's alway's Apple's Feedback page. Permit me to encourage you to go there and voice your complaint:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
I, too am usually looking for files or folders by name, and being faced with a huge list of files means I'm now more likely to go to Finder and surf to the file I want. This leaves Spotlight as my app launcher--which is fine--but that's only a portion of what it could do.
I also find it frustrating that searches in the Finder window generated from Spotlight contain all the URL's recently visited, and list them as Safari links-when Camino is my browser.
So, should I actually be looking for link (and why wouldn't I use Camino History, which actually identifies the website by name?) if I find one and click on it opens in Safari. Nor will Camino recognize the Safari-based link.
MS
Perhaps, yes. But in Leopard spotlight is so fast it's not so bad.
For example, in my Pictures folder I have a picture chrysler.jpg. I open Pictures and start typing chry in the search box. I does indeed search contents and the whole Mac -- but it's done as soon as I type the "y", and has found my picture.
@baliset
Thanks for the link, I shared my frustration with Apple.
I'm the same Paul who suggested using name: in the search - I'm sitting at my Mac now, and I can limit the search to file name only with that.
E.g. for Steve - to find your chrysler.jpg image, go to Pictures and type:
name:"chr
All files with chr in the filename will be listed.
What are you people naming your files that you have to perform so many partial name searches?
I assume we all remember that if you know the name (or just the beginning of it) you can just type it in the window (not the search field) and the Finder will "magically" select files in that folder that match what you type.