Finder and Spotlight not finding some files by name on Mac

Regarding Spotlight not finding files that are there, make sure that System Settings > Spotlight is set to show results from Documents and Folders.

Some users have needed to rebuild the Spotlight index for the above step to work properly.

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

If that doesn’t work, Copy/Paste this into Terminal. sudo will ask for your password. Just type the password and hit return. It won't show anything on screen. Those two commands essentially nuke all the Spotlight records then force a reindex. You may need to restart or log out/in after running the commands.

sudo mdutil -X /; sudo mdutil -i on /

Spotlight re-indexes your Mac after a macOS update, and this process can take some time.

About Spotlight indexing and search results on Apple devices - Apple Support

Since searching by kind and date does turn them up, Spotlight clearly has the files, it just seems to have the wrong name on record for them. Try this on one of them: click the PDF in Downloads, press Return, add a letter to the end of the name and press Return again. Then search for the new name. If it shows up now, the old name was what got stuck, and renaming sorts the files out one by one (you can change the name back afterwards). If it still doesn't show up, the full index rebuild neuroanatomist linked is the next thing to try.

— Dmitry · developer of ComfortFiles

Look at System Settings > Spotlight panel > Results from System > Files i⃝ to ensure that you have all file types selected for the Files category as well as other items on this Results panel.

Spotlight, whether from the Apps in the Dock (cmd+2), the menu extras 🔍 Spotlight interface, or the search field in a Finder window, where pdfname is the case-insensitive string of the full or partial unique filename to locate:

kind:pdf name:pdfname created:10/29/2026

In a Finder Window, it will list the current folder in double quotes and to the left of it, This Mac which would be all other results including matching files found in other folder locations. It helps to have the Finder View menu > Show Path Bar selected too.

I also suggest that you have this Finder Settings > Advanced panel configuration:



Thanks, Spotlight is configured to search everywhere, I deleted the history in Settings.

Search with Spotlight again - surprise, it remembered somehow the names of the files, and even opened them.

I tried again Finder - nothing.

OK, any idea how to fix Finder?

It's Golden Gate, not Tahoe, I've made a mistake.

Hi,

"search in current folder" setting didn't change anything- Finder still doesn't find the file.

Look, I can locate the files, but I want Finder to be able to find them the normal way.