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I've rebuilt the index several times and it does nothing to improve the function of spotlight since upgrade to Big Sur. C'mon apple...fix it!!!!! It is just awful! and so frustrating!
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.6
Time Machine and Spotlight are inseparable, so you can't disassociate your Time Machine drive from Spotlight. My Time Machine drive is connected and my Spotlight search results are nearly instantaneous. If your "backup drive" is not a Time Machine drive, then you could also drag and drop it onto the Spotlight Privacy Window, and not remove it from there. That would also block indexing it.
How you form a Spotlight search will determine how well it narrows your search. By using Spotlight keywords, or their combination, you can greatly improve your Spotlight results with less unrelated results and search time.
Time Machine and Spotlight are inseparable, so you can't disassociate your Time Machine drive from Spotlight. My Time Machine drive is connected and my Spotlight search results are nearly instantaneous. If your "backup drive" is not a Time Machine drive, then you could also drag and drop it onto the Spotlight Privacy Window, and not remove it from there. That would also block indexing it.
How you form a Spotlight search will determine how well it narrows your search. By using Spotlight keywords, or their combination, you can greatly improve your Spotlight results with less unrelated results and search time.
It’s been a few weeks. Is that long enough? I’m going to do a shutdown again and maybe it will help. I’ve contacted Apple support, and they weren’t able to resolve it. They have had some complaints, but it seems to be a random problem. The support tech suggested I use Finder for my search. It’s just not the same. I’ve been online and lots of people are having the same issue. it is dysfunctional.
It’s been a few weeks. Is that long enough?
No idea. I didn't ask if it had been long enough. I asked if it actually finished.
It shouldn't normally take more than a few minutes, depending on the amount of data, but something could be interfering with the indexing causing the problems you are seeing.
If searches in Finder are effective, then it would likely be something actually interfering with Spotlight itself rather than the indexing since all search in macOS is done using Spotlight.
Thanks for pointing out I responded to a different question. I've solved the problem but for those who may have a similar issue, this was how it was functioning. I'd open spotlight. Type a search and nothing. Return key does nothing. I'd close the window and open spotlight again and there would be a prior search from yesterday. I'd close it again and reopen and then the current search was there. I just realized Spotlight was searching everything including my hard drive, back up drive, archive, and iCloud. I've ejected my back up drive, and lo and behold, Spotlight seems to work as it should. Now I need to know how I can keep my back up drive connected but not search it? This wasn't a problem before Big Sur. I'd appreciate any suggestions to stop searching my backup drive.
There is a lot of territory and changes to the operating system between High Sierra and Big Sur. 😉
Did it finish indexing?
I've had no problems with Spotlight in Big Sur.
Thanks for your response. I did not have this issue in High Sierra. I will try to put the drive in the privacy on Spotlight.
Worked like a charm - thanks.
There certainly is!!! I do hope others find this post to help solve their issues with spotlight.
Spotlight not working at a tenth of its functionality prior to the upgrade to Big Sur.
