Where does Spotlight save search results?

[bigwig]

Somewhere in your home directory, I hope.

 

[Benjamin]

Well I know Spotlight caches searches but whats wrong with recreating the search? the point of spotlight is to always have an activate account of files that you can find, no more saving of searches. Although you could set up a smart folder I guess.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Spotlight doesn't save search results.
It has an index database file to retrieve search queries from.

 

[bousozoku]

Spotlight doesn't save search results.
It has an index database file to retrieve search queries from.

If it doesn't save them, how can it retrieve them?

Well I know Spotlight caches searches but whats wrong with recreating the search? the point of spotlight is to always have an activate account of files that you can find, no more saving of searches. Although you could set up a smart folder I guess.

Isn't the spolight search and a smart folder the same thing anyway?

I'm not sure why anyone would need to know where the searches are saved. It's unlikely that anyone would be able to edit them outside of Spotlight.

 

[grapes911]

Spotlight doesn't save search results.
It has an index database file to retrieve search queries from.

If it doesn't save them, how can it retrieve them?

It has to save the result. It would be a waste if it didn't. If you mean it doesn't save the files again, then you are correct. I don't know how Spotlight works, but it probably saves the locations of the files in a database. Also the database has to have what is in the files.

 

[Benjamin]

Isn't the spolight search and a smart folder the same thing anyway?

Yes that was the point.