Finder search and spotlight won't find partial words

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Level 1

15 points

Finder search and spotlight won't find partial words

Searching my mac won't find a file unless I use a complete word from the filename. For example, a search for "planet" won't find "planetoid.doc."

Both finder window and spotlight search have same results in Big Sur 11.2.3. Oddly, it does seem to work for file contents, just not names. So a search for "planet" would find the text "planetoid" inside a document.

Is there a way to change the settings? This makes it extremely difficult to find files when you can't remember exactly what an old file was named.

Thanks

MacBook

Posted on Apr 1, 2021 1:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

116,033 points

Apr 1, 2021 1:46 PM in response to BMatt76

In a Spotlight or Finder Window search field, use the name keyword for case-insensitive full or partial filename matches, as the name keyword does not search document contents:

kind:word name:planet
kind:word +.doc -(.docx) name:planet

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,255 points

Apr 1, 2021 1:38 PM in response to BMatt76

Spotlight is sometimes flaky depending on where in the word the phrase is. However, the shareware app, Find Any File will find partial words/phrases in file names very efficiently:

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages. It can't search the contents of files, only file names.