What Is Alfred Indexing

[bleeckerj]

I'm somewhat bewildered by how Alfred works.

 

I've asked it to find me something that is literally in the Sidebar of my Finder Window and it finds me something something similar buried deep in the filesystem — somewhere I haven't been, like..ever. (A media cache file deep in the Library, for example).

 

"He" has almost become completely useless.

 

What's the remediation here to, like..tell it to stop rooting around in the storage locker in the attic and just look in the cupboards right in front of it?

 

Julian

[Stephen_C]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Please work carefully through all of the suggestions on this Alfred help page: Troubleshooting File Indexing Issues. If that does not solve the issue run the built-in troubleshooter (as indicated on that page) in respect of the file Alfred cannot find and post the results in this thread.

 

Stephen

[Vero]

@bleeckerj Welcome to the forum

 

Alfred uses the macOS metadata index so, as suggested by Stephen, please go through the troubleshooting steps he linked to.

 

Could you also give us a bit more details as to which folder or file you're searching for, which is included in your Finder sidebar? Is it a local file/drive or something you're remotely connected to, etc?

 

Dragging the file/folder in question to the File Troubleshooter is the best first step, as you'll get a detailed report on whether macOS is indexing it and whether it's in your Alfred scope, which is the best starting point. Share the output by copy-pasting it into your reply if you're unsure what to do next. 

 

Cheers,
Vero