In a previous post, I described how I use All My Files in Mac OS X (since Lion, OS X 10.7). I’ve discovered that for some reason, All My Files does not actually display ALL of my files. It shows .docx documents, but not .doc — .xlsx, but not .xls. I’ve come up with a more comprehensive alternative that works for me.
- Go to your home folder in the Finder
- Press Cmd-F to start a file search
- Search your home folder for “Created date is with last 25 years” — That should pick up everything.
- View > Arrange my Finder window by Date Modified
- Click the Save button and give it a name. I’ve named mine All My Files* and positioned it at the top of my Finder Sidebar, essentially replacing the built-in All My Files option
This works great not only in the Finder, but also in standard Open dialog boxes when I’m looking for the last folders and documents I’ve worked on.
What happens if I delete all files in the “All My Files” diretory?
Do the original files suffer from this? I mean shall I loose them?
If you delete the files, you delete the files. They are indeed the originals. Yes, you will lose them. Proceed with caution.
Hi there.
I’m hoping you might have the answer. I recently upgraded to Lion. Love the new addition of the ‘All my files’.
I was surprised and pleased to see files from way back in 2006!!
Today though I checked back and was frustrated to see that mostly all have disappeared. I needed to rebuild my Outlook database the other day and it seem to have taken over the folder with 80% olk14_message and olk_event files.
I’m guessing the ‘all my files’ folder must have a space limit? Was wondering if I deleted all the outlook files (I really dont need them) possibly the other files would reappear? I hope so… I could really do with some that I was looking through only a day before rebuilding Outlook
Any ideas?
All the best,
Elliot
Hmmm… not sure what’s happening with your situation, Elliot.
Hi,
I am a bit annoyed by the fact that Outlook files are included in this search… is there a way to “exclude” files from appearing here?
Thanks!
Sure. You can exclude any (or multiple) file types within a Spotlight search. After your Spotlight search words(s), type the word NOT in capital letters, followed by the file name extension you wish to exclude, ie: apples NOT .olk14MsgSource … searches for the word “apple”, but not in Outlook messages.
You can also stack multiple search terms. If you wanted to look for the specific words “Apple Computer” — but not in Microsoft Office documents — you could use this Spotlight string: “Apple Computer” NOT .doc NOT .docx NOT .xls NOT .xlsx NOT .ppt NOT .pptx
I truly hope you can help me with this. I had several documents by name with pics and word documents in each (for example if I had Tracy and Tommy folders in documents and had tracy’s pic and word document of an email in her folder and Tommy’s pic and word document in his folder) the folders are there but the content in the folders are gone. They are in All My Files. I have over 200 folders like this how do I get the files back their folders without doing them manually?
Wallowing in the murk of the appalling OS that is Lion, Mountain Lion – you pick. (I’m using, unfortunately, Mountain Lion)/
Your advise overlooks the need for a lot of people to connect to NAS devices.
Finder, of course, cannot even search a NAS device. My files, of which there are many, on my NAS are not shown by finder.
Absolutely hopeless. This is meant to be the most advanced OS in the world? Disgraceful. Certainly, my first and last Apple.
Thanks for explaining that:
“All My Files does not actually display ALL of my files. It shows .docx documents, but not .doc — .xlsx, but not .xls.”
You saved me from figuring out what was happening!