Spotlight Search not working on Mac after Ventura Update

So I created a new user and tried Spotlight after reindexing. It works quite well although "Safari" (the app) cannot be found via Spotlight but all other results are back including the search inside the "Mail" app. Not sure if it will stay like that but at least for me it looks like it might be connected to the user. Now I will try to find out which Spotlight files/settings are bound to a specific user in order to see if I can get it fixed for the original user as well.

The answer from allwissendemüllhalde helped for a while, but the problem returned.

Now I have found an alternative solution, but for me, it is not entirely satisfying.

I had set up my machine with two administrator accounts. One had a hard password to unlock FileVault. The other main account had a simple password, but could not unlock the machine.

My logic was: The machine was encrypted with a hard password, but once I unlocked it, I simply changed users and opened my main personal account with a simple password. The idea was to make shifts to sudo and so on much simpler. In effect, it took a large effort to enter the building, but once I was in, it was easy to navigate my office.

Cutting to the chase – I found that when I gave my main personal account FileVault access – that is – when I could turn on and open my machine with my weak key for my main personal account, then all of my Spotlight problems disappeared.

Please ask if you need clarification. I am considering a reverse solution: My main personal account will have FileVault access and a hard password, but then I will give another admin account (with no FileVault access) a simple password that I can just log into in terminal or go su.

For now, this problem is solved. I just need to work out why Sonoma keeps forgetting my mouse (not-natural) setting and my "No sound effects" setting.

Very weird that Apple has let this one out of the cage with so many issues.

> delete the folder ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight

> kill corespotlightd process in activity monitor

> in terminal enter:

> sudo mdutil -Es -i on /

This worked for me! Thanks!

Try resetting Spotlight from the Terminal: paste the following line:

sudo mdutil-E /

and type your password when requested, then press enter.

Wow... a friend showed me and it was SO simple... click and HOLD the Spotlight icon for a few seconds and it pops back to the center.

THANKS

• kill corespotlightd process in activity monitor

worked for me!

hi I have been reading many posts over the pas three weeks and getting into technical steps like making sudo commands in the terminal app, re indexing blah blah creating an additional user etc but reading the below tip of just click and HOLD the Spotlight icon for a few seconds and it pops back to the centre. how weirdly simple and it worked for me. thank you. it was driving me nuts

For me creating a new user helped but in the end updating to a very new version solved the problem completely for me. So I'm sure a future update will solve this for you as well.

This worked for me even without deleting the folder. Killing and restarting corespotlightd did it! Thanks.

Do the following Google search: site:

discussions.apple.com cleanmymac

You'll find literarily hundreds of posts where CMM had messed up the system or apps' normal functioning. All CMM does is compromise your Mac's performance and lessen your bank account.

Peter - There are two separate issues on this thread. One is with people who have lost their Spotlight window. And yes, simply holding the Spotlight icon resets the window to the center of the screen.

However, the other issue is far more complicated, and does NOT have a simple solution: the Spotlight index failing to index one or more drives, so a Spotlight search returns zero results when searching your files. As you can imaging, trying to find a file within literally terrabytes of data is virtually impossible without a viable search engine. Fortunately, there are utilities that don't rely on the Spotlight index -- I'm now using "Find Any File", which seems to work, but it's not nearly as fast or convenient as a Spotlight search

Spotlight is a useful utility that allows you to search files, documents, apps, etc. on your Mac. However, sometimes, Spotlight won’t function normally, and may not locate files present on your Mac. This failure might happen due to wrong indexing on your Spotlight. Further, to fix the issue you can try the below DIY fixes:

1. Restart your Mac

2. Rebuild the Spotlight index with System Preferences

3. Reindex Spotlight with Terminal

4. Restart SystemUIServer Process

5. Check the startup disk with Disk Utility First Aid

6. Update/upgrade your Mac

Further, you can also check the below link for the steps to be followed in each solution mentioned above:

https://www.stellarinfo.com/article/rebuild-spotlight-search-index-on-mac.php

Hope it helps!

This is what I finally resorted to also, and it worked. The problem seems to occur when importing files from another Mac. So in desperation I finally erased the entire computer, reinstalled Ventura from scratch and then began the painful process of re-loading everything by hand. An earlier attempt to simply reinstall the OS failed.

Ventura seems to have caused a variety of problems for Mail and for Pages. The right and left arrow keys no longer work In Pages at the ends of lines. They simply keep the cursor on the same line. Mail can no longer attach more than two documents at a time. If you attempt to attach four, only the last appears. Mail sometimes cannot attach iWork documents (they appear gray in a file list). Ironically, it seems to have no trouble with Word documents. (Is this sabotage?)

There are Spotlight reserved words that help you narrow your search results. Not using them effectively can lead you to believe that Spotlight is not working correctly. When specifically searching for a file by name, it helps if you declare the file kind and its case-insensitive name or partial name. The following would find a PDF with the string "mac" in its name:

kind:pdf name:mac

Using Spotlight searches in Apple Mail is an acquired skill using different keywords than interacting with the filesystem. The following finds all emails from Peet's Coffee received after Sept 1, 2022:

from:peets created:>09/01/2022

Spotlight searches in Apple Mail are an acquired taste as it can take some Spotlight syntax or limited natural langage requests (.e.g. attachment name contains IMG, .etc). This is poorly documented by Apple.