Why does Find Any File finds files that Spotlight can't?

[MacBH928]

Basically the title, I don't understand why this app can find more files than Spotlight when Spotlight supposedly searched for everything.

 

[casperes1996]

I think the project's webpage pretty much sums it up already:

• Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn't, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search. It can even search in other user's folders if you use FAF's unique root search mode.

Find Any File doesn't replace Spotlight, but it complements it greatly:

• If you search for content, such as text in PDFs, Word documents etc., use Spotlight or its alternatives.
• If you search for files by name, size, date or kind, use FAF, because only then you can be sure that everything available is found.

Additionally, Spotlight also doesn't show hidden files, which I don't know if this app does. And anything located in a directory macOS doesn't deem a "user directory" like System folders, are usually not surfaced by Spotlight either, intentionally.

 

[Partron22]

Don't forget to hold down the option key when you actually want Find Any File to find any file.
You'll be asked for your password.

 

[MacBH928]

I think the project's webpage pretty much sums it up already:

• Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn't, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search. It can even search in other user's folders if you use FAF's unique root search mode.

Find Any File doesn't replace Spotlight, but it complements it greatly:

• If you search for content, such as text in PDFs, Word documents etc., use Spotlight or its alternatives.
• If you search for files by name, size, date or kind, use FAF, because only then you can be sure that everything available is found.

Additionally, Spotlight also doesn't show hidden files, which I don't know if this app does. And anything located in a directory macOS doesn't deem a "user directory" like System folders, are usually not surfaced by Spotlight either, intentionally.

thanks, its just that when you delete an app, you really rather extract every last bit of file installed from your system.

 

[casperes1996]

thanks, its just that when you delete an app, you really rather extract every last bit of file installed from your system.

Yeah. I've seen apps be really smart about this, and, somehow, when dragged to the trash they'd automatically delete their associated files. How they manage to do it without running though is beyond me.
Other apps of course come with uninstaller.

But installing your apps via home-brew allows you to use brew's deletion commands to remove the associated files more easily. Usually works anyway.

There's also App Uninstaller or something like that. A program for the purpose. CleanMyMac has an uninstaller option as well.

You need to beware of dependencies used by multiple programs though.

 

[MacBH928]

Yeah. I've seen apps be really smart about this, and, somehow, when dragged to the trash they'd automatically delete their associated files. How they manage to do it without running though is beyond me.
Other apps of course come with uninstaller.

But installing your apps via home-brew allows you to use brew's deletion commands to remove the associated files more easily. Usually works anyway.

There's also App Uninstaller or something like that. A program for the purpose. CleanMyMac has an uninstaller option as well.

You need to beware of dependencies used by multiple programs though.

I think Apple should force developers as a requirement to have a serial number for their apps assigned to all their files. So once you drop an app into the trash it will look for all the files with the same serial number attached to it and delete them too.

It would be great if apps that tend to modify the system would have a log file of action, so once you delete them it will go through the log file and undo all their actions instead of having to go through and do it manually.

Sometimes I dig through system files and be amazed of what kind of files residue I can find.

 

[Partron22]

Spotlight has never shown invisible or System files.
It also limits itself to the Categories you have selected on Spotlight System preferences.
Also, it will not look in any places that you have added to the "privacy" list in Sys prefs.