Native macOS Finder integration with Synology Universal Search

Tutorial Native macOS Finder integration with Synology Universal Search

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Tutorial Native macOS Finder integration with Synology Universal Search

As above. SMB has been refined considerably by Apple so that even the minor Terminal tweaks are no longer required.

My Syno NASes (Intel, AMD and ARM (which is also on DSM7)) all chat with my Macs (Intel & ARM) via self-negotiated SMB3. No issues, no fuss, at up to 10GbE speeds.

I only enable the absolute minimum of protocols on the NASes; simple configurations usually have the best outcomes.
 
Thanks for the tutorial. This solved an age-old problem of mine, i.e. not being able to search for Finder tags on a Synology network share.

W.r.t. SMB vs. AFP, for me it also only works using AFP, tested on High Sierra, Catalina and Big Sur.
So if I want to be able to search my Synology network shares from my Finder, I have to use AFP.
What are the disadvantages of AFP?
 
Main disadvantage is in my view: Support. Apple stopped active development years ago. It is still supported at minimal level. So I see also other suppliers stop supporting. If it does not work, Apple tells you to use SMB, good luck.

My mac was already unstable about 5 years ago on AFP, moved to SMB at that time. No reason to look back.
 
If the Finder + Universal Search collaboration would work on DSM6.2 + SMB, I'd happily switch.

I probably need to upgrade to DSM7 for it to work.
 
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not that it helps you, but it can work: on my MBP and Mac mini (both M1, big sur later revisions) it just worked on dsm 6.2. + SMB3
On my previous 2013 I5 MBP high sierra and later catalina and dsm 6.2, it also worked + SMB3

Therefore i doubt DSM 7.0 will help you, it may be an issue on the Mac side.
 
W.r.t. SMB vs. AFP, for me it also only works using AFP, tested on High Sierra, Catalina and Big Sur.
So if I want to be able to search my Synology network shares from my Finder, I have to use AFP.
What are the disadvantages of AFP?
Sounds like a settings issue, such as the SMB Bonjour / mDNS setting missing in DSM or SMB has been disabled on macOS.

I'd guess that the culprit will probably be on the DSM side, rather than macOS.
 
@Robbie, SMB isn't disabled on my macOS since I can connect to my shares using it. It just doesn't find Finder tags at the moment, while the files do have tags (as I can see via Get Info).

Do you know where I can inspect SMB Bonjour / mDNS settings on DSM?
 
@Robbie, SMB isn't disabled on my macOS since I can connect to my shares using it. It just doesn't find Finder tags at the moment, while the files do have tags (as I can see via Get Info).

Do you know where I can inspect SMB Bonjour / mDNS settings on DSM?
Of course, more details in the link below:

mac-clients-smb-cache-issues.7009

Hope this helps.

☕
 
For the benefit of others some historical information that may be of interest.

As already mentioned, Apple some time ago moved from preferring the use of their own AFP protocol to preferring users to use SMB. At the time Apple began this change over SMB servers - in particular Samba based ones as used by all NAS devices including Synology, Samba servers did not support the special requirements Apple stipulated for both Spotlight and TimeMachine.

However the Samba project has over time worked to improve their support for Mac clients and these days it should be possible to do both TimeMachine backups and Spotlight searching. The following two links may help.


Now the above is more applicable to either NAS developers incorporating Samba or for admins building their own Linux based Samba server.

If you are an Admin setting up a NAS which has Samba built-in then the NAS developer should have done all this work for you and hidden it behind their user interface and this is what DSM from Synology should be doing.

How good a job Synology has done in these areas is not something I can answer.

As even more information - Windows Server a very long time ago had an optional module from Microsoft to implement AFP, this has long been discontinued. However Group Logic seeing a gap filled it by developing a product called ExtremeZ-IP to add AFP file serving capabilities to Windows servers, they then added the ability to use Windows Search to index the Windows storage and make this useable via Apple's Spotlight. Later on they added the ability for the Windows Server to 'mount' a NAS or Linux share and then 're-share' it via ExtremeZ-IP. The main benefit of this was that again they could use Windows Search to index it for the benefit of Spotlight searching.

Group Logic was later acquired by Acronis and the same updated product is now called Acronis File Connect.

So an alternative approach would be to buy and run Acronis File Connect to index a NAS share - clearly not ideal due to cost.
 
For the benefit of others...
...and these days it should be possible to do both TimeMachine backups and Spotlight searching.

How good a job Synology has done in these areas is not something I can answer.
😕 🤷

I'm unclear how any of this helps a Synology/macOS user.

It all seems out-of-date as SMB has been the default on macOS for years and AFP is fully depreciated. The setting offered on the links drift past 'unnecessary' and are nudging towards 'actually harmful'.

It is standard to run TimeMachine over SMB (rather than 'may be possible') and this thread encompasses Finder/Spotlight use.

If you are unsure how good of a job Synology has done then I guess you have never tried - you just tick the relevant boxes. If you don't own a Synology NAS do you have a stake in Acronis File Connect?

☕
 
😕 🤷

I'm unclear how any of this helps a Synology/macOS user.

It all seems out-of-date as SMB has been the default on macOS for years and AFP is fully depreciated. The setting offered on the links drift past 'unnecessary' and are nudging towards 'actually harmful'.

It is standard to run TimeMachine over SMB (rather than 'may be possible') and this thread encompasses Finder/Spotlight use.

If you are unsure how good of a job Synology has done then I guess you have never tried - you just tick the relevant boxes. If you don't own a Synology NAS do you have a stake in Acronis File Connect?

☕
I have just joined a company using Synology so I am investigating this issue. They currently have an out of date DSM version which I will be upgrading. I have no relationship to Acronis.
 

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