MacOS

Spotlight

mds or mds_stores using tons of CPU

To stop it, run sudo mdutil -a -i off. To restart it again, use sudo mdutil -a -i on.

Reindex

If you have problems where spotlight isn't finding applications or files for some reason, you can initiate the indexing manually via sudo mdutil -E /.

High CPU Usage

  1. Restart the computer.
  2. Kill spotlight process in activity monitor: corespotlightd. It should restart with lower CPU usage.
  3. If that didn't work, kill spotlight processes in the terminal: killall corespotlightd.
  4. Restart again.

Set list as default view

This has annoyed the shit out of me forever. I want list view as default, but it never seems to stick. This forces it.

# Use list view in all Finder windows by default
# Four-letter codes for the other view modes: `icnv`, `clmv`, `glyv`
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "Nlsv"
# This helps to remove other views, which Finder remembered because of the
#.DS_Store files:
sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -exec rm {} \;

Notifications

Background Items Added

You can automatically clean up "Background Items Added" notifications using this script:

#!/bin/bash
# Script Last Updated: October 8th, 2024
PLIST_PATH="$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.clearBackgroundItemsAddedNotifications.plist"
LABEL="com.user.clearBackgroundItemsAddedNotifications"

cat <<EOF > "$PLIST_PATH"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>$LABEL</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>tell application "System Events"
    try
        set _groups to groups of UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of window "Notification Center" of application process "NotificationCenter"
        repeat with _group in _groups
            set temp to value of static text 1 of _group
            if temp contains "Background Items Added" or temp contains "Managed Login Items Added" then
                perform (first action of _group where description is "Close")
            end if
        end repeat
    end try
end tell</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>30</integer>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF
# Check if the Launch Agent is loaded, and unload it if so, this allows you to update by re-running this script
if launchctl list | grep -q "$LABEL"; then
    launchctl unload "$PLIST_PATH"
fi

launchctl load "$PLIST_PATH"

echo "Done. The AppleScript will run every 30 seconds to clear all 'Background Items Added' and 'Managed Login Items Added' notifications. To uninstall, run 'launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.clearBackgroundItemsAddedNotifications.plist'."

References

  1. Reindexing for Spotlight
  2. mds and mds_stores diagnosing
  3. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/284467/how-to-set-finder-to-always-use-list-view
Incoming Links

Last modified: 202606110341