Finder Search in Big Sur Returning Wrong Results

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Level 1

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Finder Search in Big Sur Returning Wrong Results

I have searched and I must be using the wrong words to describe this because I can't find any answers or anyone else having this problem. When I type in a search for any file name, I get a list of files that have that name (or include it if I used part of the file name) but they are NOT the file; in fact, they are always nothing at all like the file I'm searching (if it's a JPG in one client folder, the result often shows ancillary web files in another client's folder). Search is literally useless and I need to be able to search my computer for files as I continually return to documents from previous years.

Attaching a screenshot: literally NONE of these files are what the name in the finder shows and some of them that should be files (45 cc PUR CAP RENDERING.psd, for instance) are shown as folders. (I did not name these files, by the way... they are from my clients)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Posted on Mar 9, 2021 9:46 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

116,789 points

Mar 10, 2021 2:31 PM in response to Barry Rowell

If that external drive has never been indexed by Spotlight, or not in a long while, your search efforts may be frustrating until a fresh index is generated.

If you are looking for just a Photoshop file whose name contains 45 CC then the following will narrow your search. Note that on my Mac, I have Affinity products and all of my .psd have that as a kind. I don't have Affinity on El Capitan, and thus, the kind is "Adobe Photoshop document."

(kind:affinity OR kind:Photoshop) name:"45 cc"
kMDItemContentType:com.adobe.photoshop-image name:"45 cc"

That ought to locate any .psd file with that name string in it.

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Answer 2

Barry Rowell Author

Level 1

20 points

Mar 10, 2021 1:21 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you Viking and I know what you mean about typing in the exact characters in the search but the file name you noted with underscore was not the one I was looking for (but if I had named it, it would have had the underscore): the file name is "45 cc PUR CAP RENDERING.psd". In looking again, I notice that a PSD file actually appears in the list in a Mail temp folder from when it was emailed to me (that's something). However, I put the file in a folder on my external drive, nested inside a job folder inside a folder named for the client—but when I search only in that folder, it doesn't come up or I have wrong results. And if I had created the file myself instead of having it emailed to me, the file might not show up at all.

Here's an example: the search in my screenshot brought up a file whose icon shows a person's face on a green background: that is an image file but as you can see in the preview sidebar of the screenshot below, its actual name is not anything remotely like "45 cc..." and it is not a PSD file—it's a JPG. So I'm getting ridiculously wrong results.

This has only happened since I upgraded to Big Sur but, as I said: in previous versions of the OS, it was never a problem. It's extremely frustrating and makes the search feature in Finder all but useless. I do appreciate your suggestion, though.

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Answer 3

Mar 9, 2021 10:34 AM in response to Barry Rowell

In your example, you are telling Spotlight to search for two separate strings: 45 and cc which dredges up quite abit.

If you were looking for Photoshop files that begin with 45 cc, then your search should be:

name:"45 cc"

and your Illustrator .ai files as:

name:45cc_

and artboard ai files containing 45cc:

name:art AND name:_45cc_

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Mar 10, 2021 2:03 PM in response to Barry Rowell

Try using a custom search. For example to search for Photoshop image files with "11" in the file name try this:

You can add any modifiers you want and save the search for use another time.

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Finder Search in Big Sur Returning Wrong Results

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