I want to create two smart folders, but I want each to search specific but different locations on the drive.
I know about the Privacy settings in Spotlight preferences, but that then applies to all smart folders.
This seems to me like a common thing to want, so I’m surprised that it’s not there, or am I missing something?
Thanks, as always, for all the help.
— Glenn Downing
Not quite sure if this is what you are looking for. But try this:
Suppose you want to create a Smart Folder that looks only in your Music folder. So open your Music folder and then choose File, Find (or Command+F). At the top of the Search window, you should be able to choose "Music" as your search location as opposed to the whole drive. Then, continue to build your search with other things (keywords, types, etc). When you are done press the Save button at the top of the window to save it as a Smart Search. This way, you can create Smart Searches that only search in one location.
Thanks! That's much better than what I thought the system could do.
Still not general of course. It would be very nice to literally have a white list and a black list specific to every smart folder.
Simple example, I want to see all photos and movies in Dropbox, but not in Dropbox/Photos.
Or I want to see all photos and movies in my home directory and all of its subdirectories, but not Dropbox.
I looked and looked. There doesn't seem to be any way to use file path as a inclusion or exclusion from a search. Lots of people complaining about it, though.
I wonder if there is any other "Raw" property of a file in a Dropbox folder that you could use to exclude those files.
You could always create a folder action that when ever a file is added to that folder, it is assigned a comment or tag of some sort. And then exclude that. But that gets tricky if you pull the file back out -- and I'm not sure if it will work for Dropbox folders.