On iMac 5k it is impossible to do search for an item, for example I am searching for a specific image, I can see its icon but it disappears almost immediately. The system is eternally indexing, I have left the Mac on for days it never stops indexing. This is very frustrating as I do work with images everyday.
Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.
Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.
Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal
If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:
sudo mdutil -E /
This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this:
sudo mdutil -i on /
Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.
If still need be…
Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network
killall Dock
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -i on /
Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.
Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.
Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.
Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal
If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:
sudo mdutil -E /
This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this:
sudo mdutil -i on /
Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.
If still need be…
Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network
killall Dock
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -i on /
Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.
Thank you so much! Very helpful.
Great to hear my friend, please let us know if it cures it?
It worked. I used the terminal method. I have a huge amount of image files so it took a few hours. Now I can search via my network and find everything I need. Thank you again
Ah great to hear, you're welcome my friend, thanks for the report! :)
I had a similar problem in the mail app and it was fixed for a while but a day or 2 later it stopped again. I reported it as fixed but clearly I was wrong.
Finder search not working Big Sur 11.7.9
