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toddwhitlock Author

Level 1

24 points

Search not working in Monterey

Having first thought it was an issue with Office products and not being able to search one drive, Outlook, etc it became clear it was not limited to those folders.

In finder or within an application it will only search "this Mac" if you move to any other folder including documents it finds no results. No folder is in the spotlight "privacy" setting that would prevent it from indexing and being searched via spotlight or within finer.

This is on a brand new MacBook Pro shipped end of Oct.

Anyone have a fix?

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Nov 5, 2021 10:09 AM

Top-ranking reply

leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

Level 10

188,688 points

Posted on Nov 7, 2021 6:46 AM

toddwhitlock wrote:

Having first thought it was an issue with Office products and not being able to search one drive, Outlook, etc it became clear it was not limited to those folders.

In finder or within an application it will only search "this Mac" if you move to any other folder including documents it finds no results. No folder is in the spotlight "privacy" setting that would prevent it from indexing and being searched via spotlight or within finer.

This is on a brand new MacBook Pro shipped end of Oct.

Anyone have a fix?

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

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110 replies

Jan 18, 2022 11:39 AM in response to Chingachgook

Yes, I also have that problem (inability to return a search string), but also that Spotlight will only search file names, not content.

Jan 18, 2022 1:44 PM in response to adefouw

How sad that we have to wait for an update when so many people have the problem.

DaddyFly

Level 1

4 points

Jan 18, 2022 1:45 PM in response to tingodmusic

When MAC & MS will ever work together ? enough PLS...

TowJam60

Level 1

76 points

Jan 18, 2022 4:20 PM in response to Adudik

Just fyi - works fine against my corporate domain.

jomby999

Level 1

14 points

Jan 21, 2022 9:11 AM in response to Bike-turkey

Worked for me, thank you. I thought that this has been recommended before with no success!? Maybe because I also have the M1 Max?

Jan 21, 2022 1:31 PM in response to Bike-turkey

I've already tried that, but it's worth trying again. Thanks.

Jan 22, 2022 4:22 AM in response to Ipernicus

It seems that this is 2 issues, but it's actually the same one. My other post in this thread walks through fixing it, based on another poster's wonderful, easy solution.

Jan 28, 2022 3:44 PM in response to Jm1gabriel

I can confirm that Monterey update 12.2 fixed the search issues for me with finder/spotlight and in MS Outlook.

Jan 28, 2022 4:36 PM in response to Carrmichael

Ref Outlook search

Monterey 12.2 & Outlook 16.57 - still doesn't work for me

Jan 28, 2022 5:20 PM in response to Rcooper331

Where did you get Monterey 12.2? It's not showing up on my MacBook.

Thanks,

Jan 28, 2022 5:58 PM in response to tingodmusic

12.2 showed up as an update automatically - i think a few days ago. Didn't help

Jan 28, 2022 6:07 PM in response to Jm1gabriel

Where did you find the update to 12.2? It doesn't appear on my MacBook

Jan 28, 2022 7:58 PM in response to tingodmusic

I just went to the apple icon, ‘about this Mac’, and clicked software updates and 12.2 was there.

Jaemaz

Level 1

12 points

Feb 3, 2022 7:01 AM in response to Jm1gabriel

I'm running 12.2 on a 16" MBP I just got yesterday and am experiencing the same issue. I'm the process of trying the Terminal reindexing solution... we'll see.

Feb 9, 2022 8:58 AM in response to leroydouglas

Nope.

Search not working in Monterey