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Spotlight not working in macOS Catalina on Macbook Pro 15 Late 2017 despite several reindexing

Spotlight not working in macOS Catalina on Macbook Pro 15 Late 2017 despite several reindexing

Posted on Oct 14, 2019 10:18 AM

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Posted on Oct 14, 2019 10:28 AM

The official method of reindexing http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716 doesn't always work. Sometimes the original Spotlight index just will not go away. For these times, some people turn to the terminal. I've tried it on my computer running Catalina and it appears to be working.


Open the terminal and copy and paste this: sudo mdutil -E /


you'll be asked for your computer's admin password

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 14, 2019 10:28 AM in response to riaz99

The official method of reindexing http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716 doesn't always work. Sometimes the original Spotlight index just will not go away. For these times, some people turn to the terminal. I've tried it on my computer running Catalina and it appears to be working.


Open the terminal and copy and paste this: sudo mdutil -E /


you'll be asked for your computer's admin password

Spotlight not working in macOS Catalina on Macbook Pro 15 Late 2017 despite several reindexing

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