This is really beyond the remit of this group, but I thought I'd try here first as you guys are so helpful! I'm trying to use spotlight programmatically. I've downloaded the sample apps and used ideas from those - the code works fine in MacRuby. Where I'm coming unstuck is when I try to search mail. When creating an ordinary spotlight search, you can add a criteria 'Spotlight items are included'. This is required when searching on something like Author Email addresses (which translates to kMDItemAuthorEmailAddresses), because without it, no hits are recorded. I mention kMDItemAuthorEmailAddresses because as the attribute exists, the expectation that a query can be parsed using it is set. If you create two searches, one with and one without the spotlight requirements line, save the searches and compare them (they are in .plist format), the one with the 'Spotlight items are included' criteria has the key FinderFilesOnly set to false: <key>FinderFilesOnly</key> <false/> and the following extra criteria in FXCriteriaSlices: <dict> <key>criteria</key> <array> <string>com_apple_SearchSpotlightItemsAttribute</string> <integer>1230</integer> </array> <key>displayValues</key> <array> <string>SEARCH_SPOTLIGHT_ITEMS</string> <string>YES</string> </array> <key>rowType</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>subrows</key> <array/> </dict> I can't see documentation that explains how to achieve this programmatically; my programmatic search, like the ordinary spotlight search without the 'Spotlight items are included', yields 0 hits at the moment. Any help very welcome!