iOS 9 Spotlight Search not working properly

ALl of my contacts are iCloud and synced with outlook on a PC.

I tried all the suggestions in this post and it seemingly got better - then I turned off "Contacts found in Mail" from Mail, Contacts, Calendars in Settings and bingo!

I have tried all the suggestions in this post and nothing works. My contacts continue to be improperly indexed by Spotlight. Oddly, Siri voice interface can find my contacts by name, but textual searches fail. Since I actually use my phone as a productivity tool rather than a game machine, the lack of rapid contact access is a huge problem. The fact they removed rapid favorites access from the task switcher means even my favorites are no longer easy to access. So far, iOS 9 seems like a huge step backwards. No new functionality that I can detect, combined with significant removed or broken functionality. I wondered how long it would take Apple to start it's slide after Steve Job's death. I guess the answer is about three years.

CambridgeBoy

The best I can suggest for you is to use the search within Contacts. I find that this one will find all contacts. Not as convenient as spotlight search (if it worked).

I have an update from my original post. The "fix" did not hold for some reason. In other words, Spotlight Search began to work properly after I turned off "Contacts Found In Mail" in Settings - now, two days later, Spotlight Search has stopped working altogether. Clearly there is something else going on that is probably not fixable at the user level.

Hi, since my previous post, ios 9.0.1 arrived and updated my iphone 6, no more problems with searching by spotlight.

Thanks Apple.

Regards

bealert

9.0.1 did not improve the spotlight search for me.

This answer works for a brief time, but does not work forever.

9.0.1 did not resolve this problem, nor in my testing did either beta of iOS 9.1 (beta 1 or beta 2).

Still open bug, all solutions are only temporary, bug will re-appear after several days. Several other threads show other solutions.

Agreed. I have searched the internet and tried several fixes and nothing works including 9.01 This was an incredibly useful feature - the ability to quickly dfind contacts without having to open any apps. major step backwards if Apple lets this stay like this. Very dissapointed.

This worked for me after trying all other options. ios 9.0.1

Not for me on iPhone 6

I Had the same problem since upgrading to IOS 9 and this very simple 2 second fix has resolved the problem. Thanks

Still seeing this problem on both the 9.1 b2 and 9.0.2. Have tried all the fixes. They appear to work for a while, but whatever is corrupting the spotlight searches or breaking the link to contacts eventually resurfaces and the searches stop working. Resetting the phone sometimes works. Turning off all other search results sometimes works. Messing with the contacts app or removing one kind of contacts from the search sometimes works. But none of them work for more than a day or so.

Has anyone fixed it permanently?

my problem is if the contact links a Google and iCloud contact, information from iCloud contact is not searchable.

I am having the same issue. It is strange, if I search for a "Mike" as an example, I have a lot of Mike's in my database, and a few of them do come up on the spotlight search, but not all of them and in most cases, the Mike I am looking for doesn't show up. I haven't changed anything from how I would do contact lookups previously...looks as if Apple may not have thought doing contact lookups is important and removed the ability in IOS 9 simply not do contact lookups?

If that's the case, please add it back! I use it constantly all day long!