Mac Spotlight Searching

NoahShenandoah
I am a new Zotero user on the Mac Leopard platform. My notes in Zotero do NOT seem to be indexed by Mac's Spotlight search.

The Zotero search works just fine but I'm hoping for one omnibus integrated search solution. Is it my Mac or does Zotero not integrate with Mac's Spotlight search?

Thanks!
  • dstillman
    Zotero notes are not indexed by Spotlight at the moment. To support Spotlight properly, someone would need to write a Spotlight plugin, Zotero would have to save notes as individual files (or write out a cache file for each note, as Apple Mail and Thunderbird do for Spotlight integration for mail messages), and the individual files would have to be associated with Firefox so that Zotero could intercept them and select the appropriate notes.

    I've created a ticket for this, but it probably won't happen anytime soon unless someone volunteers to work on it.
  • JM
    I second this request.

    A related question: Since the majority of references don't have notes or attachments, is there any chance of indexing the Zotero references themselves (not attached docs, notes, etc) in Spotlight or Google Desktop?

    Thanks for all the hard work.
  • venturia
    Hello, I'm a late in this thread, but I love both my Mac and Zotero and I would also really like to see spotlight index the zotero contents!
  • hope
    The problem (well, part of the problem -- a Spotlight importer for Zotero would be the other way to solve it) is that Spotlight doesn't show results from "system files" by default. However, this can be changed -- see http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/07/search-system-folders-with-spotlight.html for directions -- and I'm happy to report that I just tested and I did indeed find Zotero files with unique words. So now I've got Spotlight for Zotero ... yay!
  • hgray
    Thanks, Hope, this is great. It works for me.

    But, doesn't Zotero or a plug-in provide similar functionality for searching pdfs etc?

    (I've posted elsewhere about wanting to use your idea to search Zotero tags)
  • pmellalieu
    In reference to:

    Hello, I'm a late in this thread, but I love both my Mac and Zotero and I would also really like to see spotlight index the zotero contents!

    I add: Me too!

    I find the Mactricks suggestion of hope Aug 10 2010 not quite what I'd like. As I have experienced it, I get just the file name, then must open the file to see if it truly did find what I was searching for, eg an author name.

    I guess I'd like Spotlight to show the Zotero citation record please!
  • John_muccigrosso
    I actually have my Zotero files in my main Documents path, so they are indexed already and show up in Spotlight searches.

    Can't you just do a

    mdimport /path-to-your-files/Zotero\ data/

    ?

    This will get the files, but not the zotero citation, of course.
  • rgesthuizen
    John is right and this is easy to do. If you attempt this, remember to use due caution. Backup your computer and files.

    I carefully copied my Zotero profile from my computer system folder to Dropbox. Then starting Preference > Advanced > Files and Folders, I changed the Data Directory location to his new custom location and restarted Zotero.

    Spotlight can now index all the documents and all the files sync across all my devices. It won't index the Zotero citation of course. In addition, this change bypasses a MacOS Sierra system file change that prevented Zotero from permitting changes to the PDF files in the Zotero system profile such as highlighting phrases or annotating a PDF.
  • dstillman
    I carefully copied my Zotero profile from my computer system folder to Dropbox.
    Don't do this. Storing your data directory within Dropbox can easily corrupt your database. Same for Documents, which in Sierra can be synced with iCloud.

    Zotero 5.0 will move the default Zotero data directory location to "Zotero" within the home directory (~/Zotero), so if you're relocating it manually now that's where we'd recommend putting it.
  • rgesthuizen
    Thanks for the heads up, I will move it to the suggested location now. Oddly enough, the current version of Evernote is plagued by the same problem for much the same reason. I hope they have the good sense to respond to this as quickly as Zotero is.
  • jasonlustig
    It's been a while since this was posted, but are there any plans to integrate Zotero with Spotlight? It would be amazing if I could search for items in macOS spotlight search and opening them would take me straight to Zotero.
  • bwiernik
    Zotero pdf and other attachment files are indexed by spotlight. If you want to search your Zotero database, check out the Zotero workflow for Alfred, a Spotlight like tool with much expanded functionality.
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