barduck

You should probably remove those directories from Alfred's default Search Scope. That should be kept fairly small. Use the File Search (start your query with a space) to find normal files.

 

Basically, you're stuck with Spotlight's database. Alfred doesn't work well with system files (I couldn't get a File Filter to work with files in ~/Library/Logs).

 

Spotlight does index /etc and the like. The command-line tool mdfind works on /etc or ~/Library just fine, as do Finder search and Smart Folders.

 

The only way to explicitly exclude files, other than using Spotlight's Privacy pane, is to tag them with alfred:ignore.

 

Unfortunately, you have to tag each individual file: tagging a directory will hide the directory, but not its contents.

mdfind does find files in /etc but spotlight and Alfred don't. Adding these directories to Alfred doesn't help. Neither will find hidden files (staring with ".").  mdfind also can't find files in certain locations (~/Library/Logs). And as you also observed, File Filter has its dead spots as well.

I want to be able to search absolutely everything. I really can't find any single method that will be reliable. It often bugs me that I can't rely on the search to know whether the file really doesn't exist or Spotlight/Alfred are playing tricks on me again.

And I hoped there was a way to tell Alfred to explicitly exclude specific files type/directory combinations from default searches. I have many applications in various places that keep popping up in Alfred and clutter my searches.

Hello,

I have two questions about Alfred search scope I can't seem to find answers for.

1.

Is it possible to limit the search scope for default results (e.g. exclude directories and/or file types from certain directories)? 

For example, I would like Alfred to stop showing me application bundles from my "downloads" and "dev" directories, as I often have many test apps and versions of the same app in there. I tried to exclude these on the OS X level but spotlight keeps indexing those and removing them using "lsregister" command is temporary and they keep popping again after some time.

So I thought I can, at least, have more control in Alfred if I can't do it on the OS level.

2.

Is it possible to have Alfred's "file search" to search the entire disk? It is currently limited to Spotlight's index and this doesn't include system directories like /etc or /Library and I often need to find files across the entire disk.

Thanks!