Ubuntu – Unity File Lens Giving Useless or No Results

11.04filesunity

I just installed Natty fresh on my laptop, and for the purposes of this experiment, I have one file on my system. My Downloads, Documents, Music, etc are all empty, but Pictures contains one file named "tornado.png". If I simply hit the super key and search through that main lens, I don't get results for "to", "torn", or even "tornado" — only for "tornado.png". And, if I search using the Files Lens (Super+S), I get no results at all, even for "tornado.png".

Is this not getting indexed properly? What's going on?

Best Answer

The file lens displays results based on files that you have actually opened. It does NOT search a full index of all your files.

At a technical level the results come from a tool called Zeitgeist rather than Tracker.

If you search for files useing Super +F you have the added advantage of having search results arranged by how recently you opened the files.