Workflow "File Filter" only indexes files that have been opened before

[cheics]

There are files that show up in the general "file search" that do now show up when using a matching "file filter" search in an Alfred workflow. HOWEVER - opening the file once ensures that the file is now able to be indexed by the file filter.

 

I'm assuming this is due to some older file version or whatnot bug... but I cannot add the same filetype twice to the file filter or the like. How can I ensure that files show up without needing to be explicitly opened?

 

For illustration purposes:

 

(1) Searching all files (empty_QL shows up)

 

(2) Using File Filter (empty_QL doesn't show up)

 

 

(3) Alfred File Filter "Sketch" Workflow

[deanishe]

I don't think it has anything to do with the files being indexed or not: Alfred doesn't have its own index—it uses the same system metadata index as Spotlight.

 

Rather, it probably has to do with how long ago you last opened the file. I don't know the exact details (only @Andrew does), but File Filters consider the time a file was last opened to be very important. It works well enough in the normal case, but there are some situations where it leads to poor results.

 

The only workaround is to open the file you're interested in, which will cause Alfred to bump it to the top of its search results.

 

If you run into this issue a lot, you could try setting up a smart folder (saved search) for your Sketch files (or whatever) and use my Smartfolders workflow to search in it. It doesn't limit results in any way, so you'll get better results than with a File Filter in some cases.

[cheics]

Thanks @deanishe - the smart folders workaround worked great!