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Force Spotlight to properly index a FileVault folder
Authored by: noworryz on Nov 27, '07 10:36:15AM

Both the hint and the comment above contain incorrect information about what is actually happening.

File Vault stores the user's home directory as a hidden encrypted disk image (.sparseimage in pre-Leopard .sparsebundle in Leopard). This file or bundle is located in the /Users directory with a period as the first character of its name to keep it hidden.

When the user logs in, the image is mounted, not in the usual /Volumes location, but in /Users. It is a separate "disk," so that is why indexing your main disk has no effect. You can force an index of your home directory "disk" by making it private and then not private from the Spotlight preferences pane.

Contrary to the comment, the index is encrypted. It is stored in the hidden .Spotlight-V100 directory in the users home directory; i.e., on the encrypted disk image that is mounted when the user logs in. There is another .Spotlight-V100 on the main disk, which contains its index, but not indexes of the user's private files.




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Force Spotlight to properly index a FileVault folder
Authored by: avendasora on Nov 27, '07 11:17:22AM

Nice. I don't mind being wrong at all!



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