Sonoma - Folder Search Not Working - 'This Mac' Search Works

Just wanted to drop another upvote here for DonnieM51's solution - I was having the EXACT same problem - Spotlight search would work on This Mac but not inside any folders.

But this: "navigate in the Finder to MacBook Air/Macintosh HD/System/Volumes/Macintosh HD, and then view hidden files by Shift-Command-Period, ".Spotlight-v100" shows up as hidden with a white minus in red circle. I then selected that hidden file, right-clicked and "Move to Trash" and it was deleted AND now my searches in folders WORKS!"

Worked like a charm. One restart later and it looks like folder search is restored as normal.

In my case the conditions were as follows: Purchased a new M3 MBP; used Migration Assistant to move my previous system (an M1 Mac Mini) via a current Time Machine backup; after a few days I noticed folder search wasn't working on the local drive (but curiously it still worked on external drives that had been indexed by the previous Mini). Search work on This Mac, but not in local folders. Annoying.

But yes, trashing the .Spotlight-v100 file (which showed 0 bytes) and restarting did the trick.

I just tried this and it had no effect, other than adding some odd unknown Word docs. to my Desktop. I can still only see files in my search after I switch to 'This Mac'. (I'd tried a recommended Spotlight reindexing fix earlier.)

On another user platform, an app called FindAnyFile was recommended, and that seems to work fine. But I'd prefer to be able to use a simple, old fashioned Finder search!

BrianVT wrote:

To clarify what I just tried was manually deleting ".Spotlight-V100".

To clarify even more, what was the exact command you used? Did it produce any error message? Did you try restarting after deleting?

I simply dragged '.Spotlight-V100' to the trash and emptied the trash. I've not restarted yet, but continue to see odd, unopenable items that look like Word work files appearing on my desktop when I'm working in MS Word. Will try restarting to see if that takes care of the problem, as I don't recall if I updated to 14.4.1 before or after I tried this.

I was searching for a specific file within DOWNLOADS. At first it wasn't being found in a general or a DOWNLOADS specific search. Although, I could clearly see the file.

I dutifully completed the Terminal recommendations, Spotlight rebuild a 10K and a marathon and still was having an issue. ( That was way too much work Apple! )

Then I performed a force quit on FINDER and did the searches again. This proved successful. Of my 2 machines it was only an issue on one. It would make sense that a reboot would accomplish the same after making the other changes but the FINDER reset was quickest.

Good luck all!

/Volumes is not the same as /System/Volumes

They’ve added even more obfuscation. Try using the Macintosh HD item there.

sudo rm -R /System/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/.Spotlight-V100

I am not sure, but since you have an Apple Silicon mac, you may have to do this while running Terminal in Recovery - and I think the path to the Spotlight-V100 is a little different then.

Yes Terminal needs Tull disk access! 🔝

To clarify what I just tried was manually deleting ".Spotlight-V100".

To clarify what I just tried was manually deleting ".Spotlight-V100".