Spotlight & iCloud Drive bug?

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Level 1

10 points

Spotlight & iCloud Drive bug?

I think I might have found a bug in Mac OS 26.

I recently posted about an issue with Spotlight. In summary, items that Spotlight finds stopped being able to be launched from the Spotlight window. And I think I’ve found the thing that triggers it.

A few days ago, I switched on my old MacBook Pro which hadn’t been booted for many months. It was still supposedly syncing to iCloud Drive.

Sometimes iCloud Drive will get confused. Sometimes it will have 2 versions of the same file, of which it will give you a dialogue asking which version you want to keep. I think rather than syncing new versions from iCloud to the MBP, it synced the old versions from the MBP to iCloud.

This, I think, was what choked Spotlight. Rather than getting a dialogue, it does nothing. It stops being able to open files anymore. At least until the outdated version has been purged from iCloud and rebooted.

I haven’t updated to OS 27 yet, so I don’t know if it’s been fixed already.

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 26.7

Posted on Oct 3, 2026 6:57 AM

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Answer 1

etresoft

Level 9

59,868 points

Oct 3, 2026 7:09 AM in response to Wayne Stuart

Wayne Stuart wrote:

I think I might have found a bug in Mac OS 26.

There are many bugs in macOS 26. It's been one of the most problematic releases in recent years.

I haven’t updated to OS 27 yet, so I don’t know if it’s been fixed already.

Well macOS 26 has already been superseded by macOS 27. No one else has reported any iCloud problem like this. I don't know what this means, but I'm confident there's nothing in macOS 27 that would fix it. This is one of those cases where an upgrade would likely make the problem much worse.

I recommend looking at your files using the iCloud web service. Manually download some files that you can't open and confirm that they still open. Your goal here is to make sure that your data in iCloud is still valid and not corrupt. You can erase and reset devices. But that won't help if the data is corrupt in iCloud. If the data is corrupt, then hopefully you have a backup somewhere. If the data isn't corrupt, then you can just erase and restore devices and that should fix it. But applying an update will, at best, not correct the problem and, at worst, make it so much worse.

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Answer 2

Wayne Stuart Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 3, 2026 7:39 AM in response to etresoft

Nothing is corrupted. All files are still accessible. It's just when this particular iCloud mis-sync triggers, as niche as it is, Spotlight should still be able to handle it. Instead, it chokes and has to be rebooted.

Can only hope Apple devs spots this and adds it to their list of things to fix one day.

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

59,868 points

Oct 3, 2026 8:48 AM in response to Wayne Stuart

Wayne Stuart wrote:

Can only hope Apple devs spots this and adds it to their list of things to fix one day.

I'm afraid this is the one place they'll never look.

I have not seen any report of any similar problem. So rather than being a niche bug, it's more likely to be some kind of problem specific to your computer. I do say "more likely". It's possibly a bug that most other people haven't seen. I've encountered those myself. But then I also run a very tight ship. Most other people don't. They tend to install all manner of 3rd party system modifications. Those typically cause a variety of minor problems with minor operating system updates. And they typically cause major problems with major OS updates.

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