Can’t find any file
Q
After recent macOS updates, using the Finder’s Find command has failed to locate files on the external disk containing my archives. How can I get it working?
ATry rebuilding the Spotlight indexes on that drive. With the disk connected and mounted, go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy. Using the ‘+’ tool add the whole drive (or its volumes) to the list and close the pane. After a few moments, open System Prefs’ Spotlight pane again, select the disk or volumes and use the ‘–’ tool to remove them. Leave the drive connected for a couple of hours at least, during which you can observe the reindexing taking place in the CPU tab of Activity Monitor. Processes whose names start with md like mds_stores and mdsworker should then use plenty of CPU until their task is complete and the new indexes are ready to use.
In versions of Monterey prior to 12.3, the Finder’s Find command, but not Spotlight itself, also has a serious memory leak which you’ll want to work around. As you search for different terms, the Finder will use more and more memory, which it only returns when you force it to restart. If you want to look for files, Find Any File from the App Store is much better, and HoudahSpot (bit.ly/ mac377houdahspot) is best for general content and other metadata searching. Hopefully this bug should be finally fixed in 12.3.