Please change the Search Box at the top of the screen by adding a return key to activate the search rather than searching as you enter each character. I have 50,000 items in GS and if I pause after entering a couple of characters the seach commences and and it takes forever to complete or it never completes and I have to force quit GS. I see no advantage as to the way it works presently and assume a change will be easy to implement.
Warren
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I agree with Warren. I spend too much time waiting for the spinning ball to finish before I can add all the letters to my search. Delete (backspace) is deadly.
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I agree, it was a real pain in the old Mac. No I have no longer the spinning ball, but it is very frustrating because it blocks while typing. A simple press of command to start the search would be enough.
Also, when you close the search and you are highlighting one ore more listings, GS automatically keeps those listings selected and so you risk to simultaneously open many folders if you forget to deselect listings before closing the search. The âreveal originalâ button should be done for this purpose, not the simple selection.
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Sometimes the âreveal originalâ also clears the search and the listing selected goes blank. I am not able to reproduce this at the moment but it does intermittently occur.
This might be a good time to question the difference between the search at the top and the âfilterâ at the bottom? Can anyone shed light on why a search would be used and why a filter would be used? They donât return the same results.
Another thing about the search. A search for some sort of gobbledygook like 'hydkivkâ immediately returns a result of not found but a search that only selects one item can take forever.
Just FYI:
The new âFilter by Titleâ field bypasses the search index, and performs a literal, case-insensitive string search. It will find patterns of special characters and numbers, which you might not have been able to find using the index based search function.
It can also be used to further narrow results obtained by using the regular search function.
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So âFilterâ means âFilter by Titleâ?
While it might be useful to some, it does not solve my search issue. Almost always I have to find items by using non-consecutive words. i.e. I type in âNFL 1985 Atlanta Ticketâ when searching for all NFL1985 Atlanta football tickets in the database whether played at home or away. This is an example of one of tens or hundreds that would be returned:
âNFL 1985 10/13 Chicago Bears at Atlanta Falcons Ticket Stubâ
Why are you apparently reluctant to make the proposed change to the Search field at the top of the screen??? If you are concerned about users that prefer the existing search, you can always add a parameter question to the software.
I have been a long time GarageSale customer (10 years?) and rarely ask for a software change. I use the product 7 days a week, 2 to 12 hours a day and the way the search feature presently works impacts my productivity. As you can see by the responses by other high-profile GS users, they are in support of this modification.
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Iâm confused about the way youâre using search here: Are you using the dropdown (on the hand lens icon) and selecting Title to focus searches, or are you searching the complete text of every item, including its description? The former is much faster in my experience, even if you search on nonconsecutive words.
The additional filters, âShow exact matches onlyâ and âWhole word searchâ are slightly more complicated. The first does seem to make search for exact text in titles somewhat faster for me, but the second may not always make results appear faster.
But in any case, searching on just Title contents certainly is faster than searching all text.
Is that what youâre doing, and itâs still very slow?
Note: Once youâve selected one or more filters (such as Title and SKU) it seems like it remains selected, which will also speed up future searches if you want to not bother selecting a different focus for each search.
I find myself relying on this speedup from filtered search whenever Iâm trying to do inventory control: I can look at a box of books, and start typing one title in (or just distinctive words) and find the listing well before I finish. Admittedly, I have only about 10000 listings in my database, not 50k.
I tried both All Fields and Title only. The issue has to do with typing the first few characters of a search and then pausing slightly - then the search takes off. All I am asking is to allow the user to enter the entire text and then press the Return key to activate the search.
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I use Bookpedia and GS and have a giant database in Bookpedia and a growing one in GS. This is a macOS issue more than an app issue. The workaround Iâve used for years [over 100,000 records in Bookpedia] is to use a text app you like, type your search there, and paste it into the search field. The extra step solves the issue and the constant beach balls. Otherwise the app stalls while you are typing and if youâre a touch typist, it is hard to know if you made a mistake or not, since the input field has stopped displaying your keystrokes.
Until this is fixed, this is the workaround I use. I use both apps daily, 7 days a week for 8-18 hours a day, so yeahâŚI feel your pain. 
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Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, I periodically use a similar workaround utilizing Apple Notes. It seems to me that adding a no search until Return is depressed would be a simple enhancement to GS.
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I believe the search field uses an existing Apple API as all search fields in Apple apps exhibit the same behavior. I donât think the field natively has the option to wait till an enter key is pressed to perform the search. Mail, Finder, Notes, Numbers, etc all work like this. That said, the Mac App Store doesnât - but the MAS is really just a special version of Safari, which also waits to search till an item is picked in the drop down, or the enter key is hit, just like MAS. Thatâs a web search, which is a different field than a document search.
EDIT: I agree fully, btw, as I would love to have a âwait for enter keyâ feature added, but I donât think it is a simple fix.
The workaround I use is I cut and paste either the complete title if known or search using the actual item number. Half of my searches come from a buyer asking a question about an item so I know the title or item number and the search is fast. OTHERWISE, I agree, the searches are painful and slow. Other searches I enter the words I am sure are in the title and see what comes up and add more if I need to narrow the search. I use GS picture service and that adds a few more seconds to the search while GS populates with pictures. The âspinning ball of deathâ in nice to occupy your time while waiting.
The latest beta of GS 9.9.1 adds an option âOnly start Searching on Returnâ to the search fieldâs menu. Hope this helps.
Having said that, weâd really would like to figure out why search is working so poorly for you. Let me know if you could upload your GarageSale library (just the database, no images) to our DropBox, so we could take a look.
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Who is âyouâ? If me, how do I upload just the database, no images?
I think, Ilja was referring to @wzindler, the creator of this post.
You find the plain GarageSale database by selecting âOpen Library Folderâ from GarageSaleâs Help menu.
In that Finder window locate the folder called âGarageSale.leveldbâ. Once you found it let Ilja know so he can send you (@wzindler) an upload link.
If you already have a DropBox account, feel free to upload the âGarageSale.leveldbâ folder there and then let us know the download link.
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I have located the GarageSale.leveldb folder. When trying to upload folder to Dropbox got an âunresponsiveâ message (maybe too large?) (BTW-I did end GS prior to trying). Anyway ask Ilja to send me an upload link and any instructions I might need.
Warren
I would guess my reason is that I have a large database:
allListings: 211322, Deleted Listings: 165601
allOrders: 48315, Deleted Orders: 17053
Any chance we can get Auto-Delete/Auto-Empty-Trash of Deleted Listings and Deleted Orders that are more then 6 months old??? 
My GarageSale data folder has 434,589 items and the size is 167.34GB:
GarageSale.leveldb size is 4.14GB
GarageSale-FTSIndex.leveldb size is 722.1MB
AuctionWebArchives folder has 861 items and the size is 3.42GB
ImageLibrary folder has 266,116 items and the size is 155.85GB
ImageThumbnailLibrary folder has 166,613 items and the size is 2.7GB
ImageCache folder has 299 items and the size is 106.4MB
Neal
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