finder not searching internal drive

Question

Level 1

36 points

finder not searching internal drive

My internal 2TB SSD shows up in finder sidebar (Sequoia). When I do a simple finder search, the search is only showing findings in the two external drives. The drive is working fine; just cannot get the search to find items on my main drive. I did notice under "Get Info" on the SSD drive under permissions it says "You can only read". When I try and change the permissions after unlocking the lock I get a message that says I don't have the necessary permissions, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with this. In System Setting under Spotlight privacy there are no locations prevented from being searched. I am stumped. I've restarted several times. What to try next?

iMac 27″

Posted on Jan 27, 2025 4:12 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

96,740 points

Jan 27, 2025 4:32 PM in response to davidra

Rebuild Spotlight, as per > Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

With that large of internal drive it is going to take some time. So it might be a good idea to exclude the external drives until the internal drive has completed indexing.

Reply

Answer 2

davidra Author

Level 1

36 points

Jan 28, 2025 3:50 AM in response to den.thed

I'm also reading articles like this that aren't very positive about rebuilding the indexing.

https://eclecticlight.co/2024/11/19/when-and-how-to-rebuild-spotlight-indexes/

Is the computer completely unavailable while indexing the SSD drive?

Reply

Answer 3

den.thed

Level 10

96,740 points

Jan 28, 2025 7:42 AM in response to davidra

davidra wrote:

Thanks.

You're welcome.

By "some time" are we talking hours, days?

That depends on the amount of data that is being index.

Is the computer completely unavailable while indexing the SSD drive?

No, but you may notice a little bit of a slow down while re-indexing.

Reply

Answer 4

den.thed

Level 10

96,740 points

Jan 28, 2025 8:29 AM in response to davidra

davidra wrote:

One last question:

I see two question marks. 😋

I never actually search with Spotlight, but always with Finder. I assume that the Finder search uses Spotlight?

Yes

If not, would that change your suggestion?

No

Reply

Answer 5

davidra Author

Level 1

36 points

Jan 28, 2025 3:19 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks. By "some time" are we talking hours, days?

Reply

Answer 6

davidra Author

Level 1

36 points

Jan 28, 2025 8:10 AM in response to den.thed

One last question: I never actually search with Spotlight, but always with Finder. I assume that the Finder search uses Spotlight? If not, would that change your suggestion?

Reply

finder not searching internal drive

Similar questions