I recently got a Mac Studio M1 Max. today I just noticed that if I open my system HD and do a search for "movies", a bunch of movies from my old 2007 iMac show up. I never linked these to the cloud and I never put them on the new computer. Full disclosure- I had an external HD mounted, and when it was mounted, ALL my old movies showed up. that kind of makes sense because all the old movies are on this drive...but I didn't do the file search in the external drive, only the system drive. Nonetheless, when I ejected the external, all the movies disappeared...except for about 10 of them. very strange. any ideas as to how this happened?
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How did movie files get on my new Mac?
- Thread starter boynigel
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The search will automatically search all the drives attached to the computer unless you specify the search to only be in one specific folder. There’s no mystery here.
Based on what you described, Spotlight is searching everywhere. I think you have to specifically tell it not to.
Go to System Preferences, then Spotlight, then Privacy. While the external drive is attached add it to that list.
"Nonetheless, when I ejected the external, all the movies disappeared...except for about 10 of them."
That would not have happened if it were only iCloud.
The third sentence in the OP says: "I never linked these to the cloud".
This is just how Spotlight works; when the external drive was connected to the computer, Spotlight found those files, just as it's intended to do.