Questions tagged [spotlight]
Questions about Spotlight, a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's OS X and iOS operating system.
1,052 questions
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Why am I experiencing Spotlight issues with a MacBook Pro 2019 16" to the new Tahoe?
I've recently updated my MacBook Pro 2019 16" to the new Tahoe. Apart from questionable performance and a user interface that I'm still not used to, Spotlight has one day decided to stop working.
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Saved finder search returns no results when query contains "Alex"
I have the following saved search in Finder. When the search query contains "Alex" no files appear in the results:
If I remove "Alex" from the query it finds my file
The file in ...
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How can I remove a phantom/deleted app entry from the Spotlight results for apps in macOS 26?
In “System Settings > Spotlight > Results from Apps,” there is a toggle entry for an application that I have already uninstalled. While this is purely cosmetic, I would like to remove this entry....
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How to make Alfred Unit Converter work like the old deprecated workflow without a keyword?
For reference, I am referring to this Alfred Unit Converter. I would like it to work like Spotlight. So I can just type “33 meters to inches” without having to type a conv keyword first and get an ...
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iPad Readdle Documents corrupts PDF metadata after annotation, breaking Spotlight indexing on macOS
After annotating a PDF on iPad (iPadOS 18.7.1) using "Readdle Documents" and syncing it with my MacBook Pro, some PDF metadata is corrupted, causing "Spotlight" indexing (finding ...
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How to make Spotlight show me Applications without enabling its indexing for my whole filesystem in general?
I've recently run command lines like
mdutil -a -i off
mdutil -a -E
to 1. disable Spotlight indexing 2. delete the Spotlight index
Because Spotlight or mds* processes frequently use a lot of CPU ...
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How to disable spotlight indexing of all volumes?
I want spotlight to never index any volumes, that exist right now on my Mac, or may get mounted in the future.
I've written this zsh function to try to achieve that:
function setup-no-spotlight-...
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After re-indexing with Spotlight video information (dimensions, codec, duration ... )is lost
After I did re-indexing a volume using Preferences>Spotlight>Privacy all information of width and height of videos are erased.
Before that, Finder Info displayed Size, Codec, Duration and Audio ...
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Use macOS to do currency conversion in Python
Spotlight does currency conversion very well and very conveniently, which IMO proves that there's system libraries on macOS that do currency conversion.
How can I use the same system libraries from a ...
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After each reboot, mds_stores consumes 300% cpu for two minutes then goes back to normal
Macbook air 2015, Monterey 12.6.7, 128gb ssd (80gb used)
Each time I reboot my macbook or turn it on after shutdown, about ten seconds after log in, mds_stores gets hyperactive and uses 300% cpu for ...
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Spotlight (mds) preventing unmounting external drive to run Disk Utility scan
I'm trying to run Disk Utility scan on an external drive. Disk Utility reports the drive is in use. lsof reveals that it is.
% sudo lsof /Volumes/mydrive
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF ...
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"mas list" does not work on macOS 26. My user not in admin group!
I use brew bundle dump for a software inventory. But mas list does not work. (See GitHub: mas)
Error:
mas list
Error: No installed apps found
If this is unexpected, the following command line should ...
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Spotlight crashes whenever a search is conducted (other aspects works, such as opening an app from the new tahoe spotlight function)
Spotlight crashes whenever I try to conduct a search to do anything whether it is opening a file, a document or search something online.
Tried so far:
Reindexing, full reindexing, deleted ...
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Is there a way to use Google search app in Spotlight on iOS?
I've been using Android for years and decided to switch to iPhone. I am used to quick access to searching app from a home screen, so I started to use Spotlight in which I search using Chrome.
Recently ...
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Why does Spotlight keep indexing an old Time Machine backup?
I back up my Mac to a NAS using Time Machine. For a few hours after each backup, I can hear the hard disks in the NAS continuing to spin. To be clear, this is after the "Cleaning up..." step....
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