sonoma 14.1 (and earlier) search function in "Finder" does give some or no search results

Question

Level 1

7 points

sonoma 14.1 (and earlier) search function in "Finder" does give some or no search results

recently I bought a new MAC mini because I was not able to update El-capitan to a new MACos, now I am stuck with a new MAC (apple M2 pro) with the latest operating system sonoma 14.1 which is not able to find a file with the help of the search function in "Finder". At some point it returned some files with the requested name (part of a filename) or a file which was recently opened. I see that a lot of people having the same issue. And I tried a lot of suggestion but unfortunatly they all seems not to work or only for a short time. It does not even find a file when you enter the exact file name.

At some point the search returned a list with file-names but it retracted the results in a few seconds

Note I see that the Finder works if I make a new directory and copy some files into it (but than it does not work in sub-directorys), but this is only an observation not a work around.

How is this even possible a Finder which is not able to find anything? Please Apple fix this !!! Once the apple "Finder" was supperiour to the Windows file explorer.

Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Nov 4, 2023 08:33 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BDAqua

Level 10

250,007 points

Nov 5, 2023 04:03 AM in response to cees272

Rebuild the Spotlight index

Follow the appropriate steps, based on the version of macOS that you're using.

macOS Ventura or later

Choose Apple menu  > System Settings.
Click Siri & Spotlight in the sidebar, then scroll down and click Spotlight Privacy on the right.
Drag the disk or folder that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the add button (+) and select the disk or folder to add.*
From the same list of locations, select the disk or folder that you just added. Then click the remove button (–) to remove it from the list.
Click Done, then quit System Settings. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the disk or folder. This can take some time, depending on the amount of information being indexed.

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

TheLittles

Level 10

201,431 points

Nov 4, 2023 08:51 PM in response to cees272

cees272 Said:

"sonoma 14.1 (and earlier) search function in 'Finder' does give some or no search results: [...]How is this even possible a Finder which is not able to find anything? Please Apple fix this !!! Once the apple 'Finder' was supperiour to the Windows file explorer. "

-------

Sanoma Finder GUI:

So, two things here...

A. Recommend this to Apple:

Do your Part: Inform Apple of this idea. You'd do so by providing Apple Feedback on this. Apple wont get back to you directly, but the more feedback thy receive from its users, the more likely they will know what their customers prefer, and what options to include in macOS versions to come.

Go Here: Feedback - macOS - Apple
Select: "Feature Request" for the "Feedback Type"
Select: "User Interface" for the "Feedback Area"
Comment: that you want this to be an option and why. Include th eURL of this thread.
Proceed from there as necessary

And...

B. Ask in the Developer Forums:

You might get a tip about what to configure, if posted in the Developer Forums. Go Here: macOS | Apple Developer Forums

Reply

Answer 3

Marcomé

Level 1

29 points

Jan 25, 2024 09:23 AM in response to BDAqua

not working still unable to search in folders

Reply

Answer 4

Apr 29, 2024 02:26 PM in response to cees272

I'm experiencing the same issue with Sonoma 14.2.1 not finding files I can clearly see within my home folders if I manually look scroll through things. If the built in OS will not find things, is there possibly a third party software/plug in that can accomplish this?

Reply