I'm searching for a couple of word documents - I know the exact folder they are in, and words that are specific to these documents - yet Spotlight can't find them when I enter specific keywords from the documents.
Is Spotlight ignoring .docx documents? There is nothing checked in the spotlight preferences, so it should be searching the whole drive, but obviously isn't.
Is there any way to clear Spotlight and get it to do its job?
If you’re on an unsupported version of Office (any prior to 2016), there are other known incompatibilities with recent macOS releases, and older Office versions will not work on Catalina.
Here’s the Apple doc for rebuilding Spotlight:
How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support
Or launch Terminal.app, and enter the following command to rebuild everything:
sudo mdutil -E /
You’ll need to enter an admin password for that command. It won’t be echoed.
If you’re on an unsupported version of Office (any prior to 2016), there are other known incompatibilities with recent macOS releases, and older Office versions will not work on Catalina.
Here’s the Apple doc for rebuilding Spotlight:
How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support
Or launch Terminal.app, and enter the following command to rebuild everything:
sudo mdutil -E /
You’ll need to enter an admin password for that command. It won’t be echoed.
The mdutil command will rebuild the search caches.
Log a bug with Microsoft.
As for options, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, iWork Pages, Numbers & Keynote, and other alternatives, then.
If you’ve rebuilt the Spotlight indexes and rebooted and tested, failing that removed any add-on app cleaners or add-on anti-malware per the vendors’ instructions and rebooted, then, failing that, check directly with Microsoft Support.
I understand. Apple has very limited troubleshooting when it comes to third party products. If Spotlight was not locating Pages files then that would be best handled by Apple.
If you have exhausted troubleshooting by trying in Safe boot, test user, update macOS; then you will need to reach out to Microsoft support to look into further. You may need to ask for one of their senior or next level tiered support.
While I do not recommend reaching out to Apple support as will most likely be given same options; you can absolutely try that as well. Might be some reports of this happening or solutions that we are not aware of here in Apple Communities.
If you’re in Office 2016, Office 2019, or Office 365, and this doesn’t work, please ask Microsoft Support.
I’d expect that Microsoft provided a data importer plug-in for Spotlight, but don’t run that software.
There’ve been previous discussions of issues, and (for instance) 2011 is long past end-of-support.
Thanks Mr Hoffman,
I'm using all the latest up to date software..
I took a look on MSN before posting - the link is years old data referencing 'footnotes' indexing, which is quite specific. There's no current or recent discussion on MSN relating to Spotlight Search problems
Cheers! If I knew how to do all that, I probably wouldn't be here, but it's a start - Thanks - got something to go on now. Don't do malware or app cleaners, so I'll work the rest out from there.
Apple suggest "Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching."
Only I'm not preventing Spotlight from searching anywhere... so that may prove re-indexing somewhat difficult..
Thanks for that - Although the rebuild link is to "Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching." Only I'm not preventing Spotlight from searching anywhere... so I can't drag it anywhere...
I run all Office latest software - fully supported on both PC and Mac, (that just flags up how lousy the Mac version of Word really is - and missing many great but essential features (like a clipboard for one...)) yet they don't give any discount for the half a programme that is Word for Mac... but that's a side issue.
Appreciate your input :-)
See my previous answer - that's why I'm reaching out here.
why doesn't spotlight search work with word for mac??
