Why Does Mac Finder Search and Spotlight Suck So Much?

Okay guys, if there is one thing that is 500% easier in Windows than it is in Mac it trying to find a Word document. I've used Finder's search feature and looked for *.doc as well as Spotlight and looked for *.doc. Nothing is coming up. Darren recommended Quicksilver but it hurts my brain trying to comprehend at first glance. This and the 'Refresh' button are the things I miss most from Windows.
This entry was written by , posted on March 26, 2007 at 9:55 AM Bookmark the permalink.

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2 Comments

  1. adrian

    Maybe Andy it's a hangover from windows that is stopping your successful search?

    I've just done a search here and found too many results! Then I realised I'd made a mistake: if I search for *.doc it doesn't find a thing, I'd searched for .doc instead.

    Windows grammar uses the wildcard (*) and is habitual, Mac uses 'natural' language and automatically finds occurrences in many forms:

    the string .doc within documents, any file called *.doc, filenames that contain doc.

    This seems natural to me, but might be unusual for windows users. Does this make sense Andy?

    03/27/2007 at 2:08 AM
  2. Alec

    I agree that Find is a mess in the current Mac Finder.

    What's with the automatic searching before one even finishes typing in a string?

    There is a simple solution. Spotlaser is a Find replacement. It uses Spotlight but tames it to work for you and not against you.

    Let me know how you get on. I had a lot of trouble with Mac OS X 10.4.x until I found Spotlaser. I'm also using iKey 1.0.3 to open Spotlaser on the command-f combination in the Finder.

    03/28/2007 at 4:33 AM