macOS "Recents" Folder not showing Affinity files

[stateazure]

I am not seeing any .afdesign or .afphoto files in the macOS "Recents" folder, which is usually accessed in the Finder sidebar. Is this a bug?

[firstdefence]

Which Mac version are you running? but in any case I haven't heard of a bug where certain file type don't get listed!

[firstdefence]

You could try the steps in this post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254455790?sortBy=best

[stateazure]

I am running macOS Sonoma 14.1.2. Thanks for the Apple Support reference, unfortunately those terminal commands didn't change this issue for me.

[firstdefence]

18 minutes ago, stateazure said:

I am running macOS Sonoma 14.1.2. Thanks for the Apple Support reference, unfortunately those terminal commands didn't change this issue for me.

Sorry to hear that, have you looked under the system settings (Siri & Spotlight) to make sure all the spotlight search result options are checked?

[v_kyr]

See also related ...

• Finder Recents not working (Apple)

 

 

• Accessing Your Most Recently Opened Folders In the Finder (Youtube video)

[stateazure]

10 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Sorry to hear that, have you looked under the system settings (Siri & Spotlight) to make sure all the spotlight search result options are checked?

I did, thanks. No problem finding Affinity files via Search.

[stateazure]

10 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

See also related ...

• Finder Recents not working (Apple)

 

 

• Accessing Your Most Recently Opened Folders In the Finder (Youtube video)

Thanks, but these settings are for the menu bar. The MacMost video is interesting but about finding folders.

Interestingly, I can create a Smart Folder for .afdesign or .afphoto files and find them just fine, but macOS default "Recents" folder, which is a essentially a search query, can't find them.

[firstdefence]

I thought I would look at my recents and sure enough my Affinity files weren't listed but if I did a search and selected recents, they were shown.

 

[markw]

Well, that’s interesting, it’s not a feature of Finder I normally have active but turning it on just now and I too find the same thing; no Affinity files show up!
But it's not just Affinity files not showing?
Only items with common; Text, Image, Video or Audio file extensions are shown for me.
The only exception to this, that I have found so far, are for the app Glyphs, it's own .glyphs files are shown.

[markw]

Clicking on the Cog icon in the Finder window and choosing;  Show Search Criteria, the default criteria would appear to be for my system as shown here:

[firstdefence]

25 minutes ago, markw said:

Well, that’s interesting, it’s not a feature of Finder I normally have active but turning it on just now and I too find the same thing; no Affinity files show up!
But it's not just Affinity files not showing?
Only items with common; Text, Image, Video or Audio file extensions are shown for me.
The only exception to this, that I have found so far, are for the app Glyphs, it's own .glyphs files are shown.

A few more installed app files that are list in recents

• Scrivener .scriv
• Snagit .snagx

I list these as they are not your pdf, pages, heic, dmg etc files.

[markw]

9 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

A few more installed app files that are list in recents

• Scrivener .scriv
• Snagit .snagx

Just found common Word file extensions like .doc and .docx are show as well. Still looking...

[stateazure]

Perhaps the default search query could be modified to include additional filetypes of one's choosing? Probably need to know AppleScript or whatever language is shown.

Edited December 15, 2023 by stateazure

[v_kyr]

See also ...

• https://forensic4cast.com/2016/10/macos-timestamps-from-extended-attributes-and-spotlight/
• https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/20639
• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254960190?sortBy=best
• https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreservices/kmditemlastuseddate
• ...
• macos kMDItemLastUsedDate  (general net search)

[DWright]

The recent files list in Finder is a smart folder that uses metadata from the files it may not be reading the last used file in our save files correctly and is not showing these files in the recent list, I will ask our QA team about this.

[Bit Disappointed]

13 hours ago, DWright said:

The recent files list in Finder is a smart folder that uses metadata from the files it may not be reading the last used file in our save files correctly and is not showing these files in the recent list, I will ask our QA team about this.

I also don't see Affinity files in my recent folder at all, which should be filled with Affinity Designer entries. Documents and files from all my other programs appear there.

Please feel free to follow up on this, I have for months on the iPad wondered what I could and could not find in recent, and have instead opened my files the hard way directly from the folders.

Running latest macOS/iPadOS on recent hardware.

[thomaso]

The configuration of the search for "Recents" might need to get customized. Its code contains more than the displayed 'logical expression' ('RAW query') mentioned by @markw, …

(kMDItemLastUsedDate = "*") && ((kMDItemContentTypeTree = public.content) || (kMDItemContentTypeTree = "com.microsoft.*"cdw) || (kMDItemContentTypeTree = public.archive))

… which for instance to me also finds Outlook contacts in particular … while I can't notice any kind of "recent" in the results but rather coincidentally dates. (the oldest offered results were last modified in 2011).

 

Instead another search setting may be easier to achieve, for instance with a search for creating application + modification date.
If I understand right the attached .savedSearch file will show on any mac ("This mac") all Affinity documents that were modified within the last 30 days:

affinity 30 days.savedSearch

[Bit Disappointed]

@DWright

I can say with certainty that:

macOS, latest:

• all files I open from the desktop, documents, transfers, etc. from other applications appear in Finder the moment I save them
• Files from Affinity v1 and v2 do not appear at all when I save files

iPadOS, latest:

• same pattern, other programs' documents appear in recent as soon as I save
• Files from Affinity v2 ipadOS do not appear in Finder, recent when I save them
• However, I do see Affinity files opened and saved on my mac in recent on iPadOS!
• Conversely, I don't see Affinity files opened on my iPad in macOS, Finder, recent

I can also safely say that my setup is most likely pretty much standard out-of-the-box-plain-vanilla-boring, as I've outgrown tinkering and customisation with age, unless it enhances my workflows, so root cause must be within the scope of the normal Affinity and macOS setups.

[v_kyr]

See related at Apple sites ...

• Recents in Finder Doesn't Show All Files

• "Last Used" metadata (kMDItemLastUsedDate) is not updated on some files when opened in Finder

... also ...

• How to add a recently opened files folder to your Dock

• Forgotten Features: Making Sense of the macOS Recents Folder

[Bit Disappointed]

Brrr, the ball is definitely in Serif's court now when it comes to solving the problem or pointing at issues within macOS. 

[stateazure]

14 hours ago, v_kyr said:

"Last Used" metadata (kMDItemLastUsedDate) is not updated on some files when opened in Finder

"Recents depends on the kMDItemLastUsedDate metadata being set with some value. Many third-party apps do not set that metadata..."

[walt.farrell]

56 minutes ago, stateazure said:

"Recents depends on the kMDItemLastUsedDate metadata being set with some value. Many third-party apps do not set that metadata..."

Where are you quoting from?

[stateazure]

42 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Where are you quoting from?

My mistake, it's here:

Recents in Finder Doesn't Show All Files

Edited December 18, 2023 by stateazure

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, stateazure said:

"Recents depends on the kMDItemLastUsedDate metadata being set with some value. Many third-party apps do not set that metadata..."

Nevertheless, using the mdls command in Terminal on an AD file I just modified & saved a few minutes ago with the  -name kMDItemLastUsedDate filter returns

Quote

kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2023-12-18 19:41:46 +0000

... yet it is not listed in Finder's Recents 'smart folder' nor AFAIK is any other Affinity file.

Normal 'dumb' Finder windows like the one this file is in does show in the Date Modified field the current date & local time for that file, as does the Get Info window, but weirdly in both Finder & Get Info Created also shows that same date, not the date when I first created that file over a year ago.

In fact, according to mdls every item with a date/time value (there are 12 of them) shows that same 2023-12-18 19:41:46 value.

I have no idea what to make of all this!