After spending too much time with spotlight and DEVONsphere Express simply trying to find a couple of files ending in .stl, I decided to see if HoudahSpot was any better. After installing, I opened HoudahSpot, changed the search to Name and ends with, typed .stl and hit Enter, there were my files. Total time including install, less than I spent fiddling with other methods.
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It’s a great app, one of the few I have launch on startup. I got rid of key commands for Spotlight entirely and only use it as a last resort from the menu bar, but I made Alfred searches Command-Space, and HoudahSpot searches Option-Command-Space.
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HoudahSpot is great. My go-to app for hard to locate files is Find Any File (FAF), mentioned here by others. Current version is 32 bit but the dev says a 64 bit rewrite is in the works. $6.
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After spending too much time with spotlight and DEVONsphere Express simply trying to find a couple of files ending in .stl, I decided to see if HoudahSpot was any better
Would be *stl (probably narrowed down to names, but by default DT puts file names over content in results) in both DEVONthink and DEVONsphere Express, but, well, congratulations on your purchase ¯\(ツ)/¯
In DEVONsphere Express, *stl gives 48 results, including files with stl anywhere in the name. *.stl gives no results, .stl gives 31 results.
The HoudahSpot search above lists only the files that I’m interested in.
DEVONthink already takes ~12 seconds to load. Can’t imagine how long it would take if it indexed the whole drive.
Anyway, different strokes for different folks. Some people are still using find / -name '*.stl' – more power to them, I’ll be back to work before the terminal opens 
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One may excuse me, since I am not a painter, but it is pretty obvious to do, if you have a lot of files containing their ending in the hame:
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HoudahSpot would be an instant buy for me except for the fact that I already bought it about ten years ago! Love love love it, I never use Spotlight (of course HoudaySpot uses Spotlight technology under the hood). I wonder if the name confuses people, I think it should be much more popular than it is, I consider it the interface for the spotlight technology that Apple should have given us.
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+1. Long time HoudahSpot fan.
I have a custom search linked to an Alfred shortcut to search Mail and Evernote. I use that 10s of times per day every day at my office. I regularly use other HS saved searches, but that one is a lifesaver every day. Now, if only Evernote supported quicklook previews…
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I agree. I thought it had something to do with music (Spotify - HoudahSpot), so I ignored it for a long time.
Houdah is the company, it’s their implementation of Spotlight. I agree though: bad name.
For newbies or people who don’t need its more sophisticated interface (and the app’s tyranny of choice, and greatest usefulness to people who understand where files are located and how to narrow by file extension, etc) I recommend Tembo, also from Houdah. It’s cross between the simplicity of Spotlight and the power of HoudahSpot makes it great for casual Mac users.
