Is there any way to make Mac OS X Spotlight only index the file names and not the contents?

"As far as I know, Spotlight is hardcoded to work this way. Most people in your situation simply disable spotlight, and use an alternative, like EasyFind.

If this is too drastic, you may want to clear out Spotlight's .Spotlight-V100 file at the root of your drive to force reindexing. Once reindexed, you might see better performance (and you might not)."

Actually, you just need to use an alternate interface to Spotlight. HoudahSpot allows you to search by any criteria of your liking. E.g. search by file name only.

Rather than using spotlight, do your search in the upper right hand corner of a finder window. That'll search only file names.

Since this is already off the announced topic, you should try Google Desktop or quick search box, depending on your OSX version. It's been a good alternative to search for files on desktops for a long time already, including linux and specially on Windows.

"I use Google QSB, HoudahSpot, Quicksilver, EasyFind & every other search app and spotlight GUI available. Still none of them come close to AvaFind or Search Everything. I use both OSX & XP/7 daily, but the horrendous search capabilities (or lack thereof) in OSX make it real a deal-breaker for me. Even OS7's find was much faster and more relevant. I always ask other OSX users ""how do you find files quickly?"", and they almost always shrug their shoulders. Seems like everyone hates Spotlight, unless you like getting dictionary definitions in place of a file's location.
Is there a GUI front end for the locate command and does it work as quickly as Search Everything or AvaFind?"