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Spotlight no longer indexes .rtf and .rtfd files. Notes came back. Lists don't match. Stickies still orphaned.

There are a number of questions and comments about Spotlight's inability to locate TextEdit / .rtf / .rtfd files. Let's clear up a few misconceptions.


• You can rebuild your index until the cows come home and it will make no difference. I've done this repeatedly in both my MacBook Pro 16" and my new Mac Pro (2019) rack mount with no increased benefit.


• The problem started in Big Sur – it did not. I am running the latest version of Catalina in both machines and I have the same this issue, an inability to locate searches in these types of files. Others have experienced this as well in Catalina.


• A particular text string can be found in the name of the file but not in its contents. It's quite remarkable to open a particular TextEdit / .rtf / .rtfd file with a specific, unique phrase, search for it using Spotlight and have it not appear in Spotlight's list.


• How do I know that indexing is the problem? I run a third party piece of software, Houdahspot, when I need more detailed search criteria than Spotlight offers, it cannot find the same type of files as well.


• Observation: after Notes vanished from the Spotlight index several years ago, it has reappeared at about the same time the TextEdit problem began. Where it used to be in the list as "external attachment' it is now listed as "other."


Here's where things get complex...


• I don't believe this problem started with an upgrade to Catalina or even a software update, a precondition for the problem have been there but some new condition triggered it after the upgrade. I did not begin to notice problem until about 3 to 6 months ago. What condition caused this problem is beyond my testing abilities.


In this discussion thread, maximilian244 wrote, "More generally, the present situation concerning all rtf files is as follows: Finder and Spotlight can search the content of all old files; but as soon as you open them, the content search ceases to work and you have to find them by name. The same happens immediately with all new files."


I have found this to be true as well and it probably is the reason why people think it started in Big Sur, because the problem has a somewhat delayed effect, you will not notice it until you create or edit a file and then search for it later.


In this discussion thread, EnhancedPineapple wrote, "I also believe, that memory has a part in this..." I also believe this. I would be the first to admit that I ride my Macs hard, I am an obsessive, anal retentive researcher, I open numerous Spaces, with multiple Safari windows and zillions of tabs, along with a horde of TextEdit docs and finder windows, I cannot be sure but it seemed that this problem came about after I managed to lock up the OS once to twice and had to restart. This could be a stretch.


• Another issue that appeared along with these other issues: when I execute a Spotlight search and then click the term, "Show all in Finder" at the bottom of the list, the list that appears in the finder no longer matches. Mail, Safari bookmarks & history and some other items vanish.


• Mail has been in and out of the index system as well.


• If you use Stickies, as I do, you will notice that the Mac OS ignores it completely from any found results. You have to open its own


Conclusion:


Apple needs to stop fiddling with search, stabilize it and make it reliable. Wether you call it Spotlight or search, it is not a minor feature, it is a fundamental component of any working operating system. These machines are not televisions, they are work horses. If you cannot find work, you cannot work.


Personally, I built an entire search system / archive on Apple Spotlight / Search but it is under serious threat now. I did this because it was powerful, detailed and trustworthy – that's kind of the bottomline with searching a system, confidence, if you can't trust it, you won't use it.


I did fill out a bug report at Apple Feedback, you should too. This helps Apple immensely to locate and repair these kinds of issues.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 13, 2021 1:34 PM

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4 replies

Jul 13, 2021 2:45 PM in response to Garrett Cobarr

I haven't rebuilt my Spotlight database on macOS Big Sur yet. I don't use Houdaspot. And yet, I can locate a minutes old RTF document exported from Pages v11.1 containing unique text, just as easily as I can years old RTF files by their unique content strings. I can find specific emails in Apple Mail by using Spotlight outside of the Mail application, and it would appear that Spotlight is more reliable for me than you.


Your lengthy post will not be seen by any Apple product team or Apple management as they do not participate in these public communities. That leaves your fellow users, who can do nothing about this. Although Spotlight is not perfect, Apple is not going to make retroactive fixes to Spotlight in Catalina, nor at this late date, Big Sur.


Question marked as Helpful

Jul 13, 2021 4:26 PM in response to Garrett Cobarr

I just tried searching within RTF files on two different Catalina Macs and finding both internal content as well as the filename strings worked. I am wondering if might help if you run Etrecheck and post the results here in case there is something installed that is somehow interfering with Spotlight working properly. It must be a very obscure thing to prevent it working only on RTF files.


Have you tried searching with the File => Find method? As far as I know it somehow uses the Spotlight engine behind the scenes but I'm not sure if it is identical to Spotlight.

Jul 16, 2021 1:49 PM in response to VikingOSX

I am very happy for you that Spotlight is working for you, that does not help me or the many others that have posted here for some years about its issues. It has worked or me in the past and woks for friends of mine who have tried to help in testing for the issue.


But that changes nothing.


You were very selective in what you chose to respond to in my 'lengthly' comment. The fact that it works for you and I am sure thousands of others, that it did work for me, now doesn't and does not work for many others demonstrates its inconsistencies. and instability. It is not hard to find people asking about my current, central problems .rtfs, or other issues - do a Google search, I did and posted links to some of them.


"Your lengthy post will not be seen by any Apple product team or Apple management as they do not participate in these public communities." Here, you are simply wrong as I have been contacted numerous times in the past by Apple support and some specific teams from posts I've made in these discussion groups.


You can post issues to Apple Feedback but there is not enough room to fully explain or to show the problem has existed longer than one OS and that it spans other applications.


The point of the post was certainly frustration but it was also meant to be a place that brought a number of related issues with Spotlight to one post and to dispel the one size fits all solution of rebuilding your index. This does work sometimes, it has on some occasions worked for me.


But the fact that we have to rebuild the index at all or repeatedly suggests that there is something wrong with Spotlight.



Jul 16, 2021 2:10 PM in response to steve626

Steve626, thanks.


I have not heard of Etrecheck and I will check that out. As I mentioned in the original post, I have a feeling that there is some kind of 'condition' that is causing the index to be incompletely updated. To be clear its the index that is the problem, demonstrated by the fact that other search tools that rely on it also cannot find the same files.


How something could interfere with a deep component of the operating system is a built of a puzzle, especially a search index.

Spotlight no longer indexes .rtf and .rtfd files. Notes came back. Lists don't match. Stickies still orphaned.

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