Spotlight Search not working on Mac after Ventura Update

Not working how: the search doesn’t find what it’s supposed to? The Spotlight window doesn’t appear? Something else?

Check that the Spotlight settings are correct, namely that everything you want to seach for has the respective box checked.

If the search still doesn’t produce correct results try resetting the Spotlight index: in Terminal, paste

sudo mdutil -E /

type your password and press enter (nothing shows as you type the password, that is normal). Give some time to reindex.

I got the same thing, here is how to fix it:

In Terminal, run: mdutil -sav

Look for all the drive, some are disabled. Particularly:

/System/Volumes/Data:

Indexing disabled

That means the entire Data disc is not indexing.

sudo mdutil -i on /System/Volumes/Data

This will turn it on.

Try this:

• delete the folder ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight
• kill corespotlightd process in activity monitor
• in terminal enter:

sudo mdutil -Es -i on /

I had this same issue. If you get a message stating that indexing is disabled, you will need to re-enable it. You can do so with the following command:

sudo mdutil -i on /

This will enable indexing on the entire volume. It returned that indexing was enabled. I did not have to run the command with -E / as it began rebuilding the index immediately. You may or may not have to run the previously mentioned command after you run this one.

My machine is now indexing properly and Spotlight is showing me the expected items.

Hi Bruce,

I had the exact same issue (cmd-space spotlight menu showed only apps, no files PLUS Mail doing nothing when search is entered), Force quitting 'corespotlightd' from Activity Monitor seemed to do the trick. Have restarted the computer multiple times, so far it's good.

Hope it helps.

I had a similar issue. Went into System/Siri & Spotlight/Spotlight Privacy (bottom at bottom of the pane) and added my iMac internal boot drive and ALL external drives to the privacy becton. I then closed System settings and reopened it. Went back and removed all items from the privacy section. This started a reindexing of all files on all drives. It will take maybe a ay to finnish but you should be able to search after it's done.

One Potential Solution:

Updating to Ventura 13.2, the most current version at the time of this writing, created the problem on my end of Spotlight being unable to search anything at all within my user account folder, period. I've called Apple twice about this specific problem. Talking with them uncovered bug after bug after bug in Ventura 13.2. Weathering those storms, helpful Paul (who thankfully spoke English as a first language, not at all knocking the kindly staff in the Philippines), taught me how to now remove the presumably broken Spotlight index and start a new, clean indexing. I have not yet found this new procedure online. So here we go:

1) Open System Settings. This can be done via the Apple Menu.

2) On the list of Settings categories on the left, click on Siri & Spotlight. (No, I have no idea why Apple mashed these two very different settings together).

3) On the right are the two separate section for Siri (ignore) and Spotlight. At the very end of the list of settings for Spotlight is a button labeled, I know not why, "Spotlight Privacy". Click it.

4) A smaller box appears on top labeled "Privacy". Click the Plus (+) button to add a location. Apparently, the 'location' is where you'd like broken Spotlight to RE-index, if it was indexed at all. In my case, I wanted my entire user account folder to have its index, if it ever existed, deleted. You could choose your entire boot drive or an entire external drive. It's up to you to decide. Read on...

5) Once you've navigated to the directory you would like to have sanitized/reindexed by Spotlight, find the "Choose" button on the bottom right of that navigation window. Click "Choose".

6) This will return you to the Privacy sub-window again. Note that your chosen directory is now listed inside the Privacy box.

7) Inside the Privacy box, click on the name of the now added directory to highlight it.

8) With it highlighted, now click the minus (-) button to remove the directory again from the Privacy window. The Privacy window should now be blank again.

9) Click on "Done". You're done. Spotlight should have removed any index it had of that directory and automatically started indexing it from scratch.

10) Verify that the indexing is occurring by going to the Menu Bar, finding the Spotlight magnifying glass and clicking on it. Type in a search term. Do Not Hit Enter! If you do, Spotlight will send you off to whatever happens to be the first result of that search term. Instead, look below the search term line to see if there is a message that Spotlight is indexing. If it is, let if finish before proceeding.

At this point, Spotlight has presumably created a working new index for the directory area you chose. Spotlight should work properly.

IF Spotlight is still broken where you want to search, do the usual routine of shutting down (not just restart) your Mac, rebooting, re-login, and see if Spotlight is now performing properly. IF NOT: Call Apple Technical Support. Something else is the cause of the problem.

(Note that re-indexing my user folder did NOT solve the Spotlight problem for me. I called Apple for the third time).

Upgraded to new Mac mini (2023) running Ventura from older Mac mini. After using the new Mac mini for a week or so I noticed the issue where Spotlight wouldn't locate a file name while searching in the folder. But as soon as I selected "This Mac", the files would be found. After looking through several solutions, including trashing the CoreSpotlight file, the issue remained. I noticed that the trashed CoreSpotlight folder had a file named index.spotlightV3 dated Sept 16, 2019. Even after I trashed it and restarted, the file would reappear which seemed strange for a new OS install. So I found another solution outside of this forum that seems to have worked for me and the index.spotlightV3 has not reappeared. Using terminal, these are the steps to Rebuild Spotlight Index on macOS Ventura.

In the Terminal, type and run the command: "sudo -i".

Enter your root administrator password and press Return.

Continue to run the commands: "mdutil -Ea" and "mdutil -ai off".

Then enter the command "mdutil -ai on" and press Return, and you will see a message saying that indexing is enabled.

Pardon me if this "solution" has already been listed but I know how frustrating it is when a standard feature is not working properly and I just want to help anyone else in the same boat.

Cheers,

Cary

Hello,

TL;DR: I've had issues with spotlight indexing lately (indexing begins at computer boot but then stops after a few minutes) but I might have solved it by unplugging my external SSD.

Basically, indexing would begin every time I started/rebooted my computer, but then after a few minutes it would stop and turn off indexing for all volumes. Looking at my system logs I can see mds_stores crashing several times during this short period.

I've spoken to apple support but they couldn't really help me except advising me to do a complete factory reset of my Macbook, which I'd rather not do. I've tried adding and removing a folder to Spotlight privacy but it gave me an "Unknown Error" (thanks). I've tried using Disk utility to check the health of my internal Macintosh HD but the problems could be repaired and didn't solve the issue.

As a last resort, I checked if it made any difference if I unplugged my external Samsung T7 SSD and it seems that was the culprit all along. Spotlight indexing has been running now for an hour with no mds_stores crashes and I can use Spotlight search for the files that have been indexed thus far.

I will reconnect the SSD later and use Disk utility to check the health of the drive after indexing has completed.

So, if you haven't tried already, try unplugging any external storage device and see if it makes any difference.

I had issues in mail and saw later also that search in other places like system setting did not work.

The solution for me were these steps:

Force re-index spotlight:

sudo mdutil -Ea

sudo mdutil -ai off

sudo mdutil -ai on

And then clear the application caches (all of them):

Quit all open apps. Then, open Finder and press Command+Shift+G to bring up the Go to Folder box.

Type ~/Library/Caches (don’t forget the tilde at the beginning) and click Go to open the application cache.

Press Command+A to select all files and folders, and then right-click and select Move to Trash to delete the entire application cache.

Restart your Mac afterward. Then, right-click the Trash icon on the dock and select Empty Trash to free up the space related to the deleted files.

Good luck!

Cheers, Ruud

I actually had the same issue on an M1 Mac as well. All the methods suggest throughout the Web actually didn't work. Like Adding the Volume to the privacy list and then remove it again to start a reindex. Also all the terminal suggestions didn't work as well.

So I booted into Recovery mode for M1: Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon - Apple Support

Then I simply reinstalled Ventura and everything got back to normal and everything was searchable again.

All the files and account were not touched, so nothing got lost.

However this is a radical move and your mileage may vary, so make sure, you have a backup in place - just in case.

It is a bit hard to say, what is going on, but if the Spotlight-Window comes up, when hitting Command + Space as a first step, you could try forcing a reindex of the Spotlight:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

If that doesn't work as expected, try resetting the index through the terminal:

sudo mdutil -E

New MacBook Pro 14" (M2), got it set-up using Migration Tools from my other (older) MacBook.

As part of the whole set-up Ventura 13.5 (22G74) got installed = current macos version.

Spotlight was not properly working from inside Finder.

Applied the usual trick of adding and removing my home directory from "Spotlight Privacy" - which didn't kick off the Spotlight reindexing.

Finally performed - as per 'allwissendemüllhalde's suggestion:

# sudo mdutil -E /System/Volumes/Data

The reindexing is now back on. In Activity Monitor, I see %CPU and CPU Time increasing plausibly for the mdworker and mdworker_shared processes.

Your comment about "no window appears, just its shadow" actually helped me fix my issue. Turns out the search bar was offscreen with just the tiniest bit of the window on the edge of my display. I was able to mouse over and bring it back to center.

Hoping this helps others.

It may or may not be directly related to the present problem, but your screenshot shows that you have “cleanmymac” installed. This is utter **** and could already have caused damage. I recommend that you fully uninstall it as per their instructions (it is not enough to drag it to the trash).