Spotlight search not working on external hard drive

Occasionally, users find that Spotlight search will not work on their external hard drives. This can often happen because Spotlight needs to reindex the drive.

MacFixIt forum user bobgags describes the issue:

"There is a folder on an external drive with photos, txt files, zips, etc. I used the search (COMMAND-F) on it hundreds of times, and once I started typing, the items would of course become listed. Now, it seems nothing can be found. Even things I KNOW are there. I have used various parameters, from shotgun approach to detailed, and nothing. Funny thing is, I have copied this folder to my iMac HD, and the searching works fine. Disk Utility reports the External HD is fine."

To have Spotlight reindex your hard drive follow these steps provide by MacFixIt "MacWizard" jchuzi:

"You may want to have Spotlight re-index the drive. Go to System Preferences>Spotlight and select Privacy. Drag the hard drive icon into the Privacy pane and drop it there. Then, select it and click - to remove it from Privacy. Within a few moments, Spotlight will commence re-indexing the drive."

Resources
Forum thread: MacFixIt members discuss how to reindex external hard drives.

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