Hide Files and Folder from SpotLight Search

This trick is for Mac users only. Now, guys everyone knows about spotlight. That handy dandy little app on the top right of the screen. This app is basically used to search the system for most of the things.

So, its basically like a system wide search and you can't hide files (this I have encountered personally). So the question which you should ask or have been asking is: How, do you hide files then. This little how-to is here to help.

There are a couple of tricks for that and I am gonna list them one-by-one and also let you know which is the more efficient.


Hide a folder and keep your files in it

To do this, all you need to do:

• Make a new folder and add ".noindex" to the folder name.

If you are gonna use an existing folder, then

• Highlight the folder
• Press Enter
• Now type ".noindex" at the end of the foldername

Now, shift your files in this folder. This basically hides the folder but this folder still shows up in Finder. If someone starts searching with the exact file name, then it might show up in spotlight.


Hide Files

To do this, just do:

• Highlight the file
• Right-Click and click Get Info or press Command-I
• Now go to Name & Extension field
• Add ".noindex" to the end of the file name
• Mac might ask you to choose the extension, then choose ".noindex"

This works, but fails miserably when you have a huge amount of files to hide.


Hide Files in Library Folder

This is tricky. Library is a folder but it does not even show up in the Finder. To actually go there do,

• Start Finder
• Hold option and click on Go in the menu bar
• Now, you see Library (usually it does not show up) and click on it

Once Library comes up, you could hide your files by shifting them here.


Configure Spotlight

This is the last option,

• Click on the Apple Icon
• Click on System Preferences
• Under Personal Tab, Click on Spotlight

• Now click on the Privacy tab

• Click the plus sign (it's on the lower-left side)
• Now choose the folder you want to hide

Or you could just drag and drop the folders in it

Sorry, but you cannot hide individual files by using this method. 

Well, these were the methods I could find. So, if your trick is not mentioned here, then please comment and let us all know.

As Always thanks for reading and please comment.