If you still cannot search in Spotlight after you follow these steps, and if you have allowed for enough time for Spotlight Indexing to be completed, you may have to uninstall Office for Mac and reinstall it. Aug 24, 2016 You're only allowed to search for so many apps. After that, you need to reset spotlight after a cooling off period of 48 hours. Jan 23, 2018 Not working properly can mean a number of different things, but for this situation will address the issue of Spotlight not being able to find any items. Try this out: First, go to Settings, then General, and then Spotlight Search. Next, you need to deactivate everything. Power off your device. Turn it back on. Repeat step #1. Sep 07, 2018 So it is exactly the same problem as before, spotlight search does work, but searching in Mail does not. It cannot be a problem with the mailboxes or the 'On My Mac' folders, as I only have iCloud folders. Today I found an interesting posting here: mail.app - Mail search not finding messages but Spotlight does - Ask Different.
- Mac Spotlight Search Not Finding Apps
- Spotlight On Mac
- Disable Spotlight Search
- Mac Spotlight Not Opening
Some users who updated to the latest iOS version are finding out that Spotlight Search is not working properly. More specifically, while some users are stating that a Spotlight search is not showing any results, some others are saying that search is not working as expected. As you can see below, a spotlight search attempt does not yield any results:
Spotlight lets you find apps, documents, and other files on iOS device, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Spotlight is especially useful if you have a lot of apps on your device.
Spotlight Search Fixes
1. Symptom: Spotlight does not show Contacts
If you experience this, simply follow these steps:
- On your iPhone or iPad, launch/Open Contacts,
- Tap Groups
- Tap “Hide All Contacts” then tap “Show All Contacts”
2. Symptom: Search is not working properly
If you think that Search is not finding items, meaning it is not working correctly, try these steps:
- Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search
- Turn off (deactivate) everything (search results)
- Now turn off your device by pressing and holding the on/off button until you see the slider. Then slide the red slider.
- Turn your device on.
- Now go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search and now turn everything on.
3. Symptom: Blank Results
If your search is showing empty search results, try these:
- Tap Settings > General > Language & Region > iPad Language or iPhone Language
- Select a language (e.g.; Canada English) and tap Done. Then confirm your change by tapping Continue.
- Now change back to your original language.
Other troubleshooting tips
You may try if your issue, still, is not fixed:
Mac Spotlight Search Not Finding Apps
- If there is an update, update the iOS software on your iPhone or iPad by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
- Send yourself an email. For instance, send an email from your iPad email address to your iPad.
- Force restart your idevice by pressing and holding the on/off and the home buttons together until you see the Apple logo.
- Reset Location and Privacy by going to Settings > General > Reset > Location & Privacy.
- Reset All Settings. NOTE: all your settings (Wi-Fi settings, Touch ID, Face ID, Restrictions etc…) will be gone if you do this. If you want to do it simply go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. Note again, this will not delete any data or content, just it will reset all settings to factory defaults.
Please note that you can change Spotlight settings by going to Settings > Siri & Search.
If nothing works, you may want to contact Apple.
Spotlight Search on your Mac lets you find apps, contacts, documents and many other things. I use it all the time as it makes easy to find whatever I need. This short article explains how you can troubleshoot If you’re having problems using Spotlight.
Here is what you can do to get Mac Spotlight search working again.
If you are having issues with iOS Spotlight search, see this article.
Before doing anything, simply restart your Mac. Restarting may fix your problem.
This article offers two tips: One is to rebuild the Spotlight index. This can be done in two different ways (1) using System Preferences (2) using the Terminal app. And the other tip is to restart the SystemUIServer process.
System Preferences
1. Choose Apple Menu
2. Click System Preferences
3. Click Spotlight
Spotlight On Mac
4. Click the Privacy section
5. Click the + (add) button
6. And add content or folder that you think Spotlight is not finding. It my cases. I added Macintosh HD to the list.
7. A window will appear saying “Are you sure you want to prevent Spotlight from searching in “Macintosh HD”. Click “Ok”.
8. Now, click the – Remove button to remove Macintosh from the list
Disable Spotlight Search
This process will force Spotlight to re-index the contents of Macintosh HD.
Terminal
Note that the whole rebuilding process can also be done via the Terminal app. Here is how:
- Open the Terminal app (Applications/Utilities/)
- Enter the following command
- sudo mdutil -E /
- This command will “Erase and rebuild index”
- Press enter
- You may have to enter your administrator password
If rebuilding does not work, read on: Kill SystemUIServer. The SystemUIServer is a background process. It controls several aspects of macOS. The following process will make the SystemUIServer restart and that may fix your problem. Here is how:
- Launch “Activity Monitor” (Applications/Utilities/)
- Find “SystemUIServer” (you can use the search box)
- Double click
- And click Quit
- Do not worry, macOS will restart the process again, automatically within seconds.
- Check to see if Spotlight is working now.
Mac Spotlight Not Opening
If you are not happy about the Spotlight search results, go to Apple menu > System Preferences, click Spotlight, then click the Search Results tab. This is where you can change your Spotlight settings.
See also: How to speed up Mac