10.4: Stop in-progress Finder Spotlight searches

Oct 25, '06 07:30:04AM

Contributed by: ocdinsomniac

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but I sure have and it drives me crazy: You open a Finder window and enter a search term in the little search bubble in the upper right section of the toolbar. Spotlight starts doing it's thing, finding items and adding them to the list in the window. When you see the item you're looking for, you select it, but Spotlight's still looking and dynamically updating the list, and your selection keeps moving around. You've found the item you're looking for, but Spotlight, not knowing any better, dutifully keeps looking.

You can stop the Spotlight search by clicking the small "X" in the bottom right corner of the window. Or better yet, you can do this via the key combo Command-. (the period). This will cause Spotlight to stop its search and stop updating the window, leaving only the current, incomplete results viewable, after which you can make your selection without having it moved out of view.

[robg adds: Yes, this may be obvious to some (most?), but I asked two buddies in iChat, and neither they nor I had even noticed the X, nor had we tried Command-. to stop a search. If only this worked for standard Command-Space Spotlight searches -- you can stop the search with Command-., but the in progress results are cleared.]

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