I prefer mlocate to locate, as it rebuilds the index in a flash by diffing and by paying attention to modification dates when traversing, so you can run its upd

I prefer mlocate to locate, as it rebuilds the index in a flash by diffing and by paying attention to modification dates when traversing, so you can run its updatedb more frequently without a noticable penalty. That said, mdfind is terrific -- it's index is, as you suggested, always upto date, and it doesn't just index file names, but also content.