Want to make local Spotlight searches more effective? Add keywords to their metadata, such as Finder Comments. But there are some snags.
Spotlight
This tool now has an overhauled interface, making it much easier to use. Currently the only way of viewing and editing xattrs without using the command line.
Explains how Time Machine knows what to back up, why it performs deep event scans, and how that system is different from HFS+ journaling.
A free tool to force full Gatekeeper checks without having to download an app, inspect, add, and remove xattrs from files and folders.
Time Machine backups are but one of 70-80 background services which are run by macOS dispatching systems. Here’s a list of some of the others.
Can you search documents on your iCloud Drive using Spotlight? Probably, but it doesn’t seem to work using normal metadata indexes.
When you keep documents in iCloud, are they backed up in Time Machine, searched in Spotlight, and kept securely?
Don’t you want to search your backups? Like it or not, Spotlight will still index them, even if it doesn’t tell you that it is.
My external drive hosting Time Machine backups cannot be ejected, so I switch it off or pull the cable. How can I stop Spotlight from indexing it?
How can I stop Spotlight from searching all my .sql files?
The Eclectic Light Company 