[analogpixel]

Store your files in a file structure that makes sense so you know where things are? I have never used Spotlight to find a file because I put files in sensible places.

[giantrobot]

I use Spotlight all the time to search for the contents of files. I don't memorize the contents and names of every file on my system, that's what my computer is for.

[josephg]

I want spotlight to open applications and system settings. But full disk indexing makes spotlight basically useless for that, because its index is filled with crap. Instead of opening zed I accidentally open some random header file that’s sitting around in Xcode. It’s worse than useless. And that says nothing of the grotesque amount of cpu time spotlight wants to spend indexing all my files.

A feature I never wanted has ruined a feature I do want. It’s a complete own goal. In frustration I turned spotlight off completely a few months ago. Rip.

[innagadadavida]

Spotlight search relevancy is a complete joke. If only they did some embedding based search across the system and paid attention to basic precision recall numbers. This has gone from bad to worse quickly.

[analogpixel]

this is what grep is for. Why do I need a service constantly indexing my system and wasting resources for the few times a month I might need to run grep <string>?

what problem was really solved here?

[zapzupnz]

> I put files in sensible places

Good for you. Do you want a medal?

Finding files often means more than just looking in folders for adequately named files. Sometimes, it's looking for the contents of files, for things that aren't files (because some kinds of files on macOS aren't actually files, they're folders that are treated specially by the system), and for things like contacts, calendar events, reminders, mail, etc.

[analogpixel]

> Do you want a medal?

Only if it's tastefully done, and says something like "Grep Champion"