Use fullpath in search criteria

Barney-15E wrote:

Use the "Other" option and add a "Document Container" criteria

I don't believe that has ever worked. I think it's a placeholder for if they ever try to implement a folder as a search criteria. It's existed for years, but has never worked.

Indeed you are correct. As the Apple Support Community Terms of Use say, always test your answer.

You can use the feedback page at

https://www.apple.com/feedback

Usually there is no reply, unless they require some additional information.

It seems to me that you are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

If you start the search from a certain folder instead of Recents, you can just click to search only inside that folder.

And if it is a bit more complex, ie if you want to search on the contents, say, of only folders A, B and C, and these folders are scattered somewhere in your drive: make a new folder D, put aliases of A, B and C inside it (command-option-drag) and search inside D.

I was hoping it would work with aliases, since they are easier to create in the Finder. All is well, though, if instead of aliases we use symlinks.

Here is one way to create symlinks from folders A, B, C inside another folder D:

1) open Terminal

2) type “cd “ without the quotes but with a trailing space; do NOT press enter

3) Drag folder D over the Terminal window (it expand its full path into the command line)

4) press enter to execute the command

5) type “ln -s “ again with a trailing space and no enter

6) drag folder A iver Terminal

7) type a period, and then press enter

(the command line will look line this:

ln -s /Users/path/to/folderA .

)

repeat steps 5)-7) for each folder you want to make a symlink for

I have to take it back. I was pretty sure that it would work, but I have just tested it and it does not.

At this point maybe you should look at a third party solution. Several of the most prolific members here say great things about EasyFind. I have not tried it myself.

Use the "Other" option and add a "Document Container" criteria

I don't believe that has ever worked. I think it's a placeholder for if they ever try to implement a folder as a search criteria. It's existed for years, but has never worked.

I did manage to get a couple of results, one was an iCloud Synchronization file that really didn't exist.

I did find some in Preview's iCloud Drive folder. When I looked at the metadata, it had kMDItemDocumentContainer set to the folder name. So, assuming the metadata gets set by something, it would work. However, I don't know of anything that does set that particular metadata.

Use the "Other" option and add a "Document Container" criteria

Made me look, again, and there is very limited progress.