Spotlight in 10.5 skips over user Library files

DVDpedia files for Spotlight are in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata and they get indexed with Spotlight (so there are exceptions) along with the Safari bookmarks and other Apple Spotlight files in the same folder; it's what lets the Quick Look also work so nicely with Spotlight.

Sorry, another try at the link:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/9283

Check here guys:
Money Quote:
To tweak your search further, click the + button at the right end of the Location Bar. This reveals a Criteria Bar. Here you can choose a metadata type in the leftmost pop-up menu. By default, there are just six sorts of metadata listed here: ...
There is also a seventh item in the leftmost pop-up menu of a Criteria Bar: Other. . . When you choose Other, you get a dialog listing all the kinds of metadata the Spotlight index knows about... I recommend that you immediately check two items that I think you'll be using quite a lot:

System files. When set to Include, files are sought even in special locations such as /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Preferences. For example, if you search on "com.apple" you won't find much, but if you include system files, you'll find hundreds of preference files.

I still can't get Leopard to index my /users/shared directory. It ignores all my photos and music...

Since I have energy enough to do for free what I assume AppZapper does—Spotlight an app, then drag to the trash anything with its name (usually app, preference file, and app support folder)—I understand that in 10.5 it's up to the app to tell Spotlight to index it in ~/Library? So my uninstall method will still work after I upgrade to 10.5, if the app was written according to spec? (And if my uninstall method isn't proper, well, it's hasn't bit me yet.)

If the files you want to find in Adium or some other program aren't searchable, then the best thing to do is to let the program's developers know about it. We're all better served when they follow the guidelines and put things where they're supposed to be (are you listening, Microsoft?), and when they support the APIs that let the system do its job.

This is, of course, incorrect. Many apps store their files in ~/Library/Application Support (where they are supposed to) and Spotlight can index them. (Just two examples on my Mac: Delicious Library and Yojimbo.) I can understand Apple not wanting the rest of that folder searched. If developers put their files in the App Support folder where they are supposed to, then there wouldn't be a problem.

It appears that Mail searches differently than both Spotlight and Finder. Could the author comment on the differences?

thanks for confirming this. this issue has been driving me nuts. i even posted about it in the apple discussions -- receiving no helpful replies (and one very *un*helpful one from someone who criticized me for wanting spotlight to find these types of files).

if anyone can find a permanent fix for this -- a terminal command or whatever -- please, please post it.

it seems apple keeps "dumbing down" the OS to cater to the masses. i'm glad more people are buying macs, of course, but all of these new "features" (like the warnings when you attempt to open a downloaded app) are getting ridiculous. the problem isn't so much the added features -- but that there's no way to *change* the default behavior.

Thanks for this. I've been trying to figure out how to fix this since I installed Leopard.