Spotlight Search

Lightning Fast Search on Server Volumes from Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, and Android Users

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Finding files on large file server volumes should be fast and easy. Reality is different – a file system search of a large storage system can easily take hours. A HELIOS Spotlight search though, returns search results in seconds. The HELIOS Index Server search system indexes file attributes, text content, and metadata of server files. This Apple Spotlight compatible search technology enables Mac, Windows, Web, and mobile users to quickly find server files.

Full-text searches of PDF files, Office documents, text files, and Adobe InDesign preview files are fully supported. Even searches based upon image attributes, document metadata, XMP metadata of images, WebShare annotation information and PDF form fields can be performed. The simple yet powerful search syntax allows well defined searches to find just the desired files.

This unique HELIOS cross-platform search support overcomes the platform-specific limits of other server search systems. With the HELIOS Spotlight search:

  • Mac clients use the built-in Find or Spotlight search dialogs
  • Windows clients use the “HELIOS PCShare Search” application or Windows Explorer extension
  • WebShare users use the built-in Spotlight search dialog
  • iOS users use the Spotlight search dialog in Document Hub
  • Command line and batch mode searches use the “dt” command-line tools

With the HELIOS file server solutions, customers receive very powerful search capabilities for all major client platforms. This changes how file server data can be found, and has great potential for every business.

The Spotlight search is included in all HELIOS file server products: EtherShare, PCShare, WebShare, and also in Base and Document Hub.

Cross-platform Spotlight search from different clients:
(Click on thumbnail to enlarge view)


Spotlight search in a CLI shell


Spotlight search on a Mac


Spotlight search on Windows


Spotlight search in WebShare


Spotlight search in Document Hub

The WebShare integrated Spotlight search help pane allows quick look-ups of search attributes and their aliases:

The following table shows the indexed file formats:

Format Index
Files and folders All file and folder names including dates
Comments Mac, Windows, and WebShare file and folder comments
Images All major image formats (color space, resolution, pixels, …)
IPTC IPTC metadata fields
EXIF Image information from EXIF records
XMP XMP metadata fields as well as custom XMP fields
ICC ICC profile names that are included within images
Text Regular text files (ASCII, Unicode, etc.)
Word Word files (old and new formats)
Excel Excel files (old and new formats)
PowerPoint PowerPoint files (old and new formats)
PDF PDF metadata and form fields
PDF text PDF full-text extraction
Xpress/InDesign Full-text extraction via ImageServer add-on (XPV files)
Media wav, mp3, avi, mov file metadata
Zip Zip archive files