search taking so long

I recently purchased a new MacBook Air (M2 2022). I am running on MacOS Monterey 12.6 and using up about 50% of the storage capacity. I am finding searching in Finder agonizingly slow, much slower than I experienced on my previous computer a 2015 MacBook, with almost all of its storage capacity filled. Surely, a brand-new machine should be able to search for files more quickly. Can anyone suggest something I might check/do to speed up searches?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 26, 2022 08:14 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 26, 2022 08:40 AM

Typically looking for documents (MS Word, Powerpoints, etc.). As a teacher I am often looking for past lecture material, searching with keywords. With my old 2015 machine, I would find stuff almost instantly. With the brand new machine, the search spins for minutes before returning the search results.

Similar questions

4 replies

Nov 26, 2022 09:34 AM in response to camowens

Have you tried:


kind:word created:01/01/2022-07/01/2022
kind:power +.pptx name:student created:>09/01/2022
kind:excel +.xlsx name:grade modified:>09/01/2022
kind:word name:john modified:<11/01/2022



These say the following in order:

  1. show me any word document created in 2022 prior to July 1.
  2. show me any powerpoint (.pptx) document with case-insensitive "student" in its name created after Sept 2022
  3. show me any excel (.xlsx) document whose name contains "grade" and modified since Sept 2022
  4. show me any word document that contains the name string "john" and modified before Nov 2022

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

search taking so long

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.