Spotlight no longer working

Anthony Sbarro wrote:

I only have one account on the computer.

I have all items in the Spotlight list enabled.

I am unable to drag or add any file location to the Privacy List because, as stated, I get an error that says "Privacy List Error. The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error."

I guess I can interpret that as — you can not drag & drop the" Macintosh HD volume" icon on to the window...

A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.

Login and try again.

Reboot  as normal and test.  Caches get rebuilt automatically.

no resolve—

Erasing Spotlight's Index Database from the terminal.app— 

first change directories (cd), copy and paste:

cd /System/Volumes/Data

followed by , copy and paste:

sudo rm -R .Spotlight-V100

rebuild the index, copy and paste:

sudo mdutil -E /

(note: sudo your psswd will not echo on screen type it in anyway, use the enter\return key to proceed.)

you can verify it is working by entering just about anything into the Spotlight search field...

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

Anthony Sbarro wrote:

When using Spotlight to open any native application (Mail, Mails, Calculator, Terminal, Safari, etc) it is unable to find that application and instead does a web search. If I enter Maps, it directs me to maps.google.com. MacOS 15.3.1.

I did try the instructions outlined here Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support but when I try to add anything to the privacy box I get "Privacy List Error. The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error."

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/31262f8f-065a-442a-b540-1b52badcbfa4

not sure I get "Privacy List Error" or you logged into your admin account(?)

You can verify your Applications is checked in Settings— if so toggle it off and back on.

If necessary drag and drop your Macintosh HD onto the Privacy list— give it a second or so, then remove it to jump start the re-index:

if you don't typically have the Macintosh HD on your Desktop, put it there for this exercise;

Finder>Settings>General>Hard disks

Anthony Sbarro wrote:

Looks like the SafeBoot method did the trick. Spotlight is indexing. Thanks very much!!

Good computing Anthony Sbarro, I appreciate the feed back.

I tried that terminal method in Sequoia and — it did not seem to work as presented above...however

for the record this worked, copy and paste:

sudo mdutil -X /; sudo mdutil -i on /; sudo mdutil -E /

 Deletes the .Spotlight-v100 folder; Turns indexing back on; Rebuilds index 

you see it in progress: