Can only find some files if I use the Exact File Name?

[elgrayso]

There are some files Alfred cant find, unless I use the exact file name. I have "Fuzzy matching" enabled. 

I have a file on my dropbox called "2017-02-03-AnyLab-Metabolic Panel.jpg". When I search Alfred with "metabolic" there are no results. However, if I search for the exact file name it finds it immediately. 

(Note: Spotlight cant find the file either, I'm not sure if thats part of the issue)

[Vero]

@elgrayso Alfred searches from word boundaries, so you'll find the file by searching using "Panel" as there's a space before it, creating a word boundary. If you used spaces instead of dashes between words, e.g. "2017-02-03 AnyLab Metabolic Panel.jpg", you'd be able to find it using any of the words. This is assuming your Spotlight index is in good shape.

 

If Spotlight can't find it either even with the word "panel", you may need to rebuild your Mac's index from Alfred's Advanced preferences. This can take up to an hour, and will result in OS X rebuilding the file index to ensure files are found in the future.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[elgrayso]

thank you for your answer! Is there any way to tell alfred to regard dashes as "word boundaires" ? I've been using dashes for a lot of my files for years as a part of my file organization process. A lot of people that do things for web and other software that doesnt allow spaces are probably in the same boat as me. If this isnt an option it seems like it would be a good feature request!

[Vero]

@elgrayso This isn't an Alfred feature, it's down to OS X itself; As you said yourself, Spotlight can't find the file either.

 

Having said that, you could search by adding a wildcard (the star symbol), so that your search goes as follows:

"[spacebar]*metabolic"

 

You could even create a workflow to help you speed things up by upgrading to the Powerpack.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[elgrayso]

ah I see, i couldnt tell if it was OSX or alfred. The wildcard worked though! I believe I have the full paid Alfred, as Ive used alfred for years and wanted to support it. How would a workflow speed things up by the way? would that be like if I created a custom search function like "w metabolic" which would tell alfred to search for "metabolic" with a wildcard (the "w" meaning "wildcard search")?