{"id":49077,"date":"2025-08-29T16:23:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49077"},"modified":"2025-08-29T16:23:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:23:43","slug":"spottest-1-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/29\/spottest-1-1\/","title":{"rendered":"SpotTest 1.1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/08\/18\/spottest-1-0-will-help-you-diagnose-spotlight-problems\/\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/08\/18\/spottest-1-0-will-help-you-diagnose-spotlight-problems\/\"><p>Spotlight is so substantial, almost silent in the log, and impenetrable that the best approach to diagnosing its problems is to test it out in a controlled way. Mints has been doing that by creating a folder of files containing an unusual word, then searching for that. Although that&rsquo;s still useful for a quick test, we need something more focused and flexible, and that&rsquo;s what SpotTest aims to deliver.<\/p><p>Following deep dives into how Spotlight indexes and searches metadata and contents of files, and how it can search text extracted from images and the results of image analysis, I&rsquo;ve realised that different test files are required, together with alternative means of search. For example, the standard approach used in compiled apps, with <code>NSMetadataQuery<\/code>, is incapable of finding content tags obtained using Visual Look Up, which only appear when using the <code>mdfind<\/code> command. SpotTest takes these into account.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>A perfect 13\/15 result from <code>NSMetadataQuery<\/code> is only possible after waiting a day or more for background <code>mediaanalysisd<\/code> processing to recognise and extract the text in file I, a PNG image.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/08\/25\/spottest-1-1-has-search-scopes-for-volumes\/\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/08\/25\/spottest-1-1-has-search-scopes-for-volumes\/\">\n<p>As promised, this new version of my Spotlight indexing and search utility SpotTest extends its reach beyond the user&rsquo;s Home folder, and can now test and search any regular volume that&rsquo;s connected to your Mac and mounted in <tt>\/Volumes<\/tt>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/21\/spotlight-indexing-running-wild\/\">Spotlight Indexing Running Wild<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/18\/invasive-spotlight-indexing\/\">Invasive Spotlight Indexing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/07\/fixing-mediaanalysisd-storage-and-cpu-use\/\">Fixing mediaanalysisd Storage and CPU Use<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/22\/opting-out-of-visual-look-up-and-icloud-photos\/\">Opting Out of Visual Look Up and iCloud Photos<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/21\/montereys-visual-look-up\/\">Monterey&rsquo;s Visual Look Up<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Howard Oakley: Spotlight is so substantial, almost silent in the log, and impenetrable that the best approach to diagnosing its problems is to test it out in a controlled way. Mints has been doing that by creating a folder of files containing an unusual word, then searching for that. Although that&rsquo;s still useful for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-08-29T20:23:31Z","apple_news_api_id":"be52a1ef-b367-4218-a25a-e1678d126166","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-08-29T20:23:31Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AvlKh77NnQhiiWuFnjRJhZg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30,32,2598,343,1042,2825],"class_list":["post-49077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-macos-15-sequoia","tag-search","tag-spotlight","tag-spottest"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49078,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49077\/revisions\/49078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}