Searching on Synology NAS volumes with Find Any File

(See also: Searching on QNAP NAS)

Find Any File can use Apple's Spotlight engine for faster search on local and supported network volumes. All you need to do it check the option "Include Spotlight results" in FAF's Preferences window.

If you want to search on a Synology volume, you find below some instructions on how to set this up.

Verify that Spotlight search works on the NAS

1. In the Synology web interface, make sure the Universal Search package is installed and running. Open the Universal Search app in the web interface and make sure that you can search for known file names and document text content on the NAS. This external article on synoforum.com provides help with the details.
2. Mount the NAS volume on your Mac, open the NAS window in Finder and then use the Search field in the top right of the Finder window to search for the same file name or text that you searched for. It should work the same as in the Universal Search app before. If that works, you're set. Just make sure the the Spotlight option is also checked in FAF's Preferences.

Limitations when searching on the Synology NAS

There are several flaws in Synology's Spotlight support, but FAF manages to work around all of them so far.

One of the flaws is that even though Synology reports that its search is finished within a second, usually, it turns out that it may still find some files later. That means that FAF has to keep waiting for the NAS to report more hits even after it's supposedly finished. That's why FAF will always take at least 6 seconds when searching a Synology volume, even if it seems to have found all items already within a much shorter time.

If you experience the effect that a search with FAF will not show all hits on the first search, but will if you repeat the search, contact me please so that we can investigate and adjust FAF's behavior. It may need an adjustment of the waiting time, which can be modified easily via hidden preferences.