Find a file in OS X Leopard? Spotlight not finding it...

You can open a Finder window, and type it in the upper-right to search. That is the live search for OSX.

Spotlight is different, it’s in the upper-right of the entire screen.

Hmmm… the finder search seems to be just as fast, as if it is searching an index rather than the drive itself… Still no luck on finding the file..

I think I figured it out… There was a second user setup and the file existed within the trash bin of another user… Mozy was set to backup that user as well and obviously spotlight couldn’t find the file when logged in under another profile…

Sorry guys false alarm.. Looking at the Mozy log files tipped me off to the problem.

There’s alot of apps that will cataloge all the files on a Mac, then lay them out in color coated blocks relative to size.

This always helps me find and delete large rogue files.

You might also have tried the “locate” command in the Terminal. Once the locate database is updated, it finds pretty much everything on the system. Do “man locate” in Terminal for more info on triggering a database update and using the command. Do “locate <yourfilename>” without the brackets to locate the file. Do “locate <filename> | grep <partofthepathname>” to help reduce the number of results, if you get too many.

Behold the power of UNIX.