MacOS – Does Spotlight keep a search history

I rans a few tests in 10.8.2. My empirical results show that spotlight returns results for partial matches when the start of the name matches, but not any part of the name. I have not found a way to change this.

I have another challenge with multiple word searches. My empirical experience is that a filename search containing multiple words (separated by spaces) yields results only if the search words are contiguous in the filename. For example:

Given some files with these names:
xxx rules and roles yyy.zzz
aaa roles and rules bbb.ccc

• a search for {roles} or {rules} will find both files
  (note: the braces are included here for clarity; they are not part of the search string)
• a search for {rules and roles} will find the first file only;
• a search for {roles and rules} will find the second file only;
• a search for {roles rules} or {rules roles} will find nothing;

I find this last behaviour frustrating, as I don't want to have to remember the word order in my filenames. And one-word searches get too many hits.

Anyone with answers for this?

Finder's search, as well as many other programs (Alfred, Outlook, etc.) use Spotlight's index files. If you have Spotlight shut off, you won't be able to get Finder search working natively.

There are a few free third party apps that you can use to search for files without using Apple's system:

1. Find Any File
2. EasyFind

These two do not use spotlight's index files and should work independently.