They are also not appropriate for searching unmounted volumes since the search fails. Indexing massive numbers of files make these applications almost useless for finding anything, primarily due to the simplified interface. While you can index remote volumes, search results and performance get worse as the number of indexed files increase. Here’s what doesn’t work for me:Īlfred, Launchbar and Quicksilver are great for searching a local volume. Here’s what satisfy most of my requirements:īefore I get into the available options I’ll try to cutoff as many comments as possible. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s certainly a selling point. Or setup a query format that includes things like a filename and modification date and then just change the search terms to something else later. It’d be convenient to build up a precise query and reuse it again later. This is a feature I could take or leave but I’d prefer to take it. Search and collect and then action the results. Tools like PathFinder have a concept of a result stack for collecting results across multiple search sessions. One thing that Spotlight stinks at is collecting results. The ideal tool should decide on good matches for me. An alphabetical list of results is almost useless. With around a million files on my NAS, search results should be intelligently organized and prioritized. Support for QuickLook and display of meta attributes is a must. I need to be able to see the details of a search hit. Am I looking for a file named BBEdit Installer.dmg or is it BBEdit.dmg? I also want to be able to combine file name search and metadata search. At the least, I need support for wild-card searching. I don’t need RegEx support but it sure would be a bonus. It’s a plus if it can index email archives. It should also index metadata like modification time stamps, OS X tags, creator name, etc. It needs to index the document text, where possible. Search MetadataĪny disk inventory tool I’d consider needs to search more than just the file name. I don’t really want to mount each one just to do a quick search. I keep a large amount of stuff on my NAS, various Dropbox and Google Drive accounts and a couple of one-off archive volumes. Everyone has their own list of requirements but I think mine are somewhat boring and generic. I’ll start with a brief list of use cases and then dig into one of several options. This is a rundown of things I’ve tried and what I’ve learned. It hangs the Finder with even the most basic search on a large NAS directory. Spotlight is not sufficient for dealing with external volumes or sifting through large numbers of files if you don’t know the exact filename or parent directory. Applications like Alfred rely on Spotlight to do their searching but the Spotlight application itself is pretty good for basic file finding. Spotlight on the Mac has now improved to the point where I almost don’t know I’m using it. Now do the hokie-pokie, because that’s what it’s all about. Now raise your hand if you used some kind of disk inventory program to help you figure out which disk contained the Spaceward Ho! installer.
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