sw6lee

Q: El Capitan Spotlight search doesn't have an option to search the web using a web browser

As the title says.

 

Typing quickly in spotlight doesn't show any option to search the web by directing to browser. I'm not talking about bing search result, although that doesn't show up either, but I don't care about that.

 

I used to be able to search the web from spotlight, but in either Yosemite or El Capitan, that option is gone from spotlight. It does search for suggested web pages, but I just want to do google search from spotlight.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

Posted on Mar 5, 2016 12:44 PM

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Q: El Capitan Spotlight search doesn't have an option to search the web using a web browser

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  • Helpful answers

  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Mar 5, 2016 1:57 PM in response to sw6lee
    Level 7 (23,816 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 5, 2016 1:57 PM in response to sw6lee

    pic.png

  • by sw6lee,

    sw6lee sw6lee Mar 5, 2016 4:01 PM in response to leroydouglas
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Safari
    Mar 5, 2016 4:01 PM in response to leroydouglas

    Did you even read my question fully??

  • by 808armada,

    808armada 808armada Mar 5, 2016 4:07 PM in response to sw6lee
    Level 1 (73 points)
    Mar 5, 2016 4:07 PM in response to sw6lee

    Just needing more information. When typing your search does your window look like this?

    Screen Shot 2016-03-05 at 2.05.51 PM.png

  • by sw6lee,

    sw6lee sw6lee Mar 5, 2016 4:16 PM in response to 808armada
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Safari
    Mar 5, 2016 4:16 PM in response to 808armada

    Yes it's similar, but as you can see, you also don't have "search on web" or something similar. I used to be able to do this on past OS X. From what I can see on google, others are having the same problem on yosemite, so I think it was in mavericks. I have since then stopped using spotlight to search on google quickly because it's not possible now. But I'm wondering if there is a fix because it is strange that apple would remove this feature.

  • by 808armada,

    808armada 808armada Mar 5, 2016 4:25 PM in response to sw6lee
    Level 1 (73 points)
    Mar 5, 2016 4:25 PM in response to sw6lee

    Agreed. The "Suggested Website" feature is pretty useless. 3rd party apps like "Alfred" would be an alternative if you use that feature a lot. Others have submitted a bug report asking for the feature to be available again. I'm sure it has to do something with the "war" between Google search and Apple.

  • by sw6lee,

    sw6lee sw6lee Mar 5, 2016 4:29 PM in response to 808armada
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Safari
    Mar 5, 2016 4:29 PM in response to 808armada

    Hmm that kind of makes sense. But I read some news about google paying apple a very large amount of money some time ago to keep google as default search engine on iOS, so I don't know why we can't do this google search from spotlight. Maybe apple wants even more money for this lol

  • by balsa2,

    balsa2 balsa2 Mar 8, 2016 4:27 PM in response to sw6lee
    Level 3 (523 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 8, 2016 4:27 PM in response to sw6lee

    It may depend on your search history in Safari, (mine in this case)

    a Spotlight search for Wikipedia :

    Screen Shot 2016-03-08 at 23.47.13.png

    will open the Wikipedia page using Safari, or your preferred browser.

     

    Also, you still have System Preferences > Shortcuts > Services > Search With Google :

    Screen Shot 2016-03-08 at 23.18.10.png

    where you can Search with Google, on your highlighted word :

    Screen Shot 2016-03-08 at 23.21.36.png