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Questions tagged [spotlight]

The search utility included in OS X.

Use Spotlight to search for things like apps, documents, images and other files. In OS X Yosemite, Spotlight suggestions offer additional results like Wikipedia, news sites, Maps, iTunes, movie listings, and more.

Mac Basics Help: Spotlight

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Why does MDS run wild in Mac OS X 10.6?

I've been having trouble with the MDS process running wild on my MacBook Pro 13". I've read on other support forums indicating that improperly formatted external drives can be an issue, but I have no drives connected. How can this problem be…
kubi
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How can I quit frozen Spotlight without rebooting my computer?

I opened up Spotlight, typed '12*' to do some multiplication and it's been frozen for the last 20 minutes. I am looking for how to restart the program/service/whatever it technically is, but it's not in the Force Quit menu, so what is the quickest…
Damon
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Remove "fun" facts from Spotlight lock screen in Windows 10 Home (1803)

UPDATE: I tried all solution proposed in How to disable “link your phone” links on the lock screen? and none of them seem to work on Windows 10 Home (version 1803), so this is probably not a duplicate question. I like Spotlight on my lock screen,…
Marc
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How to use wildcard characters in Spotlight search?

I'm used to using the search window in Windows that provided the ability to use options such as: Date of Creation/Modification File Size File Extension Wild Card Characters How can I search with Spotlight with similar criteria?
sagarkothari
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How to see what files spotlight is currently indexing

Spotlight has been driving me nuts, over working my poor Harddrive so that my whole computer goes to a crawl. (CPU usage is still pretty low, then again I do have a core i7). I saw somewhere that there was a way to see what it was currently indexing…
Mint
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Spotlight doesn't solve math operations any more

It used to be that Spotlight would figure out math operations for me (for example, if I typed 5 + 3, the first Spotlight result, before any located files or other search results, would be the answer). For the last few weeks, it hasn't anymore - if…
Charles
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Spotlight built-in calculator does not work

After the latest OS X update to 10.10.2, Spotlight built-in calculator stopped working. I tried to disable/enable it in settings and reboot, but nothing helped. Am I the only one who is fighting this? Any ideas?
nvartolomei
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How to disable Spotlight in Snow Leopard?

It seems previous Spotlight disabling method that worked in Leopard, no longer works in Snow Leopard. How can I disable Spotlight in Snow Leopard?
user9993
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How do I tell Spotlight not to index a particular folder?

I don't want to turn Spotlight off completely, I just want to turn it off for one particular folder in my homedir called 'nospotlight` Another question talks about how to disable Spotlight completely; but I want to keep it running, just not indexing…
James Polley
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Why should I use Quicksilver instead of Spotlight?

I recently purchased a Macbook (13") and have been perusing various blogs and zen/hacker sites which provide insight and instructions on becoming a proficient user. I feel relatively comfortable on it, though not quite as comfortable as on my native…
bedwyr
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Where does Spotlight store its metadata index?

Where does Mac OS X store Spotlight comments associated with a file? Is it stored as HFS+ file metadata, or is the information kept by the OS somewhere else?
Lorin Hochstein
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How to search with Spotlight more effectively

I'm used to using various flags to modify the results of Google searches, to only show results from a particular site, or only certain kinds of files. For example you can restrict Spotlight searches to only look for pdf files like this example, when…
Chris Adams
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Is there any way to make Mac OS X Spotlight only index the file names and not the contents?

I do understand that the point of Spotlight is to look inside files, but it also returns file name matches, and that's what I need most of the time. Besides, Spotlight is running so absurdly slow on my system (Snow Leopard on the iMac '08), it's…
aalaap
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"Stuff" dissapearing from Spotlight search

Question What is causing this to happen? What can I do to fix it? Background I use Spotlight to launch my applications much like Quicksilver and have recently found that many of my applications aren't showing up in the Spotlight search. Context I…
Mike Grace
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Disable Spotlight search in Time Machine backup

I'm running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and am trying to disable Spotlight indexing on my Time Machine hard drive, as the mds and mdworker processes are running wildly through all day at 15-60% of CPU... What bugs me is not that my MacBook is running slowly…
victorcampos
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