Spotlight has stopped working on a folder — why?

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Level 2

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Spotlight has stopped working on a folder — why?

I have a folder with PDF files that I used to access using spotlight to find certain references. This has stopped working. I have added and removed the folder to 'do not index' in Privacy (as per Apple instructions) but that hasn't helped.

I have also tried to totally reset Spotlight from the command line:

sudo mdutil -s -a -v -E

The md activity went up in Activity Monitor and 12 hours later I tried again, but Spotlight still does not work with the contents of that folder. The PDF's are perfectly searchable.

I don't know what to do.

Mojave, fully up to date.

Posted on Mar 29, 2020 2:59 PM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

Level 10

146,246 points

Mar 29, 2020 8:15 PM in response to Gerben Wierda

To rebuild the Spotlight index please read How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support.

sudo mdutil -s -a -v -E

I don't know what effect that will have.

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Answer 2

Gerben Wierda Author

Level 2

293 points

Mar 30, 2020 1:18 AM in response to John Galt

I already did those and it did not help.

The mdutil call I did, sorry for that (I copied the wrong line from my shell session), was

sudo mdutil -E

-E This flag will cause each local store for the volumes indicated to be erased. The stores will be rebuilt if appropriate.

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Answer 3

Gerben Wierda Author

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293 points

Mar 30, 2020 2:50 PM in response to Gerben Wierda

OK, it gets a bit weirder. When I copy the contents of the folder (the manuals for ConTeXt) from its original location /usr/local/context-osx-64/tex/texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals to ~/Downloads/TestFolder they are indexed and found by Spotlight.

But not in their original location. Why? And how do I fix this, because I want the manuals and such in /usr/local to be found.

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Answer 4

Gerben Wierda Author

Level 2

293 points

Mar 31, 2020 12:57 AM in response to John Galt

Yes, that is an obvious explanation. But is it true and is it potentially configurable? Is it documented (it should be if this is the case)? After all, I can't imagine such restrictions are hard coded, though I can understand that Apple wants to protect ordinary users from stuff found in, say, /usr/man or /usr/local/man

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

146,246 points

Mar 30, 2020 3:20 PM in response to Gerben Wierda

Gerben Wierda wrote:

But not in their original location. Why?

Spotlight does not index every folder. I would not at all be surprised if /usr/local/ were one of them.

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Spotlight has stopped working on a folder — why?

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