Spotlight not working as usual post Sonoma 14.1 update

Background:

I had a 2018 Air that I transferred to my new 2022 Air. Everything seemed fine, except that Spotlight would only search my entire Mac, and not the individual folder I wanted to search.

I tried the Terminal fix mentioned by mjvandecreek without any luck. In my case, it didn't work.

Solution:

So this is how I made it work, on both my Air and my wife's identical Air, with the same issue.

I went to System Settings > Siri & Spotlight > Spotlight Privacy. Hit the + symbol and added my entire HD and hit done and saved all preferences. As expected, I opened a random folder and tried a spotlight search and nothing came up - because I was blocking my entire hard drive.

I then repeated the steps above and removed my HD from the list and hit done and saved all preferences. I opened another random folder and tried a spotlight search again. This time both the HD and individual folders showed results. I was able to repeat this process with the same successful result on my wife's Air.

Conclusion:

I am only left to think that the indexing of our computer folders was corrupted - maybe from the transfer. When I blocked everything, it erased the index, and when I unblocked it, it re-indexed everything properly and began functioning again.

I don't know if this is a real fix, but it worked for me on two computers - so it was repeatable. I hope it works for others as well. Please reach out to me if it works for you also, so we can pass the word on to others.

SOLUTION THAT WORKED FOR ME (after trying several suggested on this page)

*The operations were all done in normal mode, not recovery mode*

This command did not work for me, in fact it did not find .Spotlight*

sudo mdutil -i off /

sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight*

sudo mdutil -i on /

sudo mdutil -E /

then replaced .Spotlight* with .Spotlight-V100

(I know, technically they should be the same thing, but I can't tell you why Spotlight* doesn't work and .Spotlight-V100 does)

So this is the set of commands I typed in my Terminal:

sudo mdutil -i off /

sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100

sudo mdutil -i on /

sudo mdutil -E /

And Spotlight is finally back! No reboot was needed.

I repeat, I did it in normal mode not recovery mode.

Mine is a macbook pro 14" chip M1

With Sonoma 14.3.1

I hope it will work for someone else in here.

I think Apple definitely needs to put its attention on this problem, they are unacceptable for any Operating System in general, let alone Apple.

I had the same troubles with Spotlight on a new M3 MacBook Pro.

I had migrated from my previous Intel MacBook a few weeks ago and never got spotlight working properly.

The following story led to the solution of the problem (for me)

Beside the spotlight problems, a few days ago I also encountered problems with authenticating the last system software update - the system settings showed an authentication dialogue that constantly refused to accept my account‘s password, although the account has admin privileges and has not had any authentication problems before.

After some google research I learned that Apple introduced a new concept called ‚volume owner‘ to Apple silicon machines (see https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2023/03/10/granting-volume-owner-status-on-apple-silicon-macs/)

It turned out that somehow the Volume Owner of my startup disk was not my admin account, but another random account that not even had admin privileges. Obviously, there had occurred some strange fault during the migration process of the accounts.

Once I followed the instructions to grand volume ownership to the correct Admin account, not only the authentication problems, but also all spotlight problems magically disappeared.

Spotlight problems? Could it be your external / Time Machine disk?

I was having a nightmare - Spotlight wasn't providing ANY sensible answers - no apps, no folders ... mail seemed to be OK ... but the whole thing was useless. Two days of pain later, I had tried most of the suggestions above - and most of these too - including an OS update.

Eventually, I just unplugged my Time Machine disk.

Bingo. On one reboot, it's back to normal. That is to say, it's indexing - which it wasn't before - and it's showing apps as search results from the get-go.

Having done that, I discover that Spotlight will index your TM backup - and that can't be turned off.

I now wonder if it was trying to finish 4TB of TM indexing before turning to the startup dis, My external HD's not super-fast and the USB port would slow it down further.

I'll post back here if I have further insight.

Good luck!

Fixed:

sudo mdutil -i off /

sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight*

sudo mdutil -i on /

sudo mdutil -E /

Reboot

Long pause after logging in, but then spotlight functioned as normal

Note:

I also added my account to the wheel group but not sure that was necessary. Was troubleshooting a MS AD type of managed user account.

Have you tried a safe boot? It often times will fix anomalies like this.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support (English)

Fixed: Hi Guys, if you are still having issues, the solution is simple. Under Sonoma, system settings, Siri & Spotlight, by default the Siri keyboard shortcut is "Hold Command Spacebar" which conflicts with Spotlight. Change it to something else, e.g. "Hold Option Spacebar" and continue using "Hold Command Spacebar" for Spotlight. Enjoy your new Apple OS. Cheers, Mac_Minder.

Rebuilding the spotlight database solved this issue for me. I added Macintosh HD then removed Macintosh HD as instructed here:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

I'm afraid that 14.2 did not solve my issue and decide all the recommendations, I was never able to solve the problem.

So I finally decide to reinstall MacOS, keeping the data. That didn't work. So I finally had no choice but to erase all my hard drive and reinstall, using TM.

As TM had stopped working but did work while Spotlight was re-indexing, I removed the .Spotlight folder in recovery mode, restarted, launched TM and then erase the whole HD.

It now seems to work again. But well... what a waste of time and energy. But thanks for trying to help :-)

Taking a shot in the dark here to see if your problem is the same as the one I finally identified (unfortunately no fix that I've found yet).

You mentioned Spotlight doesn't work well after standby. Do you happen to log in with Touch ID? If so, can you try logging in by password to see if it works normally?

I've found that Spotlight doesn't work when I log in with Touch ID but works just fine after a password login. Really obnoxious...

On a 2019 Intel Macbook Pro, after upgrade from Ventura direct to Sonoma 14.1.1, Spotlight still works, but command-space does not. I tried rebuilding the index. I tried turning off "Click wallpaper to reveal desktop." I tried turning on and off the keyboard shortcuts in settings. I tried clicking and holding on the magnifying glass control at the top right in the menu bar. The spotlight menu appears when I click the magnifying glass, and it finds files and apps correctly. However, command-space does not work. Command-option-space does not show the Finder search window either. I rebooted into safe mode and it started working again. It continued working after rebooting normally.

Greetings to all. I have a 14 inch M1 PRO already upgraded at 4.3.1 and O have the same problem.

I tried all proposals above, some of them worked for minutes and then again the same.

I just tried the keyboard shortcut option+command+space ( all together) and the spotlight worked. However if i jusg click the spotlight icon or the equivalent commend+space nothing happens.

This ofc ourse doesn't resolve the mail content.

I finally solves the issue on my M3 MBP by checking and re-assigning the ‚volume owner‘ of the boot volume. The concept is new to Apple Silicon machines. It seems as if the correct assignment of a volume owner sometimes fails if one migrates to the AS machine from an Intel machine, as I did.

After I repaired the volume owner (please google how to do this) everything started working again.

Have you attempted to reindex Spotlight?

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

There are more invasive ways to kickstart Spotlight if that doesn't work.

Have you tried rebuilding the Spotlight index this way?:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support