iOS 9 Spotlight Search not working properly

The problem is that changing the default language, or rebooting the phone or resetting all settings will only alleviate the problem, but it won't fix it entirely. Sometimes those solution will fix the problem for a day or two before returning to buggy behavior.

In my experience, the only thing that gave some noticeable, sustained relief from the issue was to delete/uninstall old, unused apps. It would appear that simply having fewer apps on the device was enough to shrink the index-able elements to a more manageable amount for our RAM strapped devices.

Brian, that is my experience as well. There may be (multiple) bugs involved, but since Apple is no longer making 1GB RAM devices I doubt this problem will be fixed. I have many apps, the problem is I use all of them, even if infrequently. So i rely on force-quitting apps to free up RAM and using Siri to launch rather than using Spotlight (most frequent reason I use Spotlight).

I had the same problem. I did try many ways to fix it. But problem returned after a few hours or minutes. I had call with Apple support. They said, problem started at iOS8, iOS9 fixed it, but there are some unreparable bug in backup phone.

I made everything, it takes me 6 hours + night to download data for apps (cca 35GB). But after this is iPhone faster and spotlight works perfectly.

Then only one clear way is:

- disable Find my iPhone

- restore iPhone from iTunes (downloading and installing iOS)

- initialize iPhone as a NEW! without iCloud account

- add iCloud account and synchronize you want

- manualy install apps you want

It looks easy, but you haven't forget for your data!

You have to prevent losing data. At first, I have to say, I didn't found how to save and restore Messages, because messages aren't part of synchronization, only saved in backup. But backup you cann't use for restoring, because there is bug for that spotlight doesn't work. Then you have to know, YOU WILL LOSS ALL MESSAGES. You can backup them with any app from store or you can use any unoficial app for reading backups (iTools, iBackup Viewer, iFunBox). I didn't test it, you can do it on your own risk. I don't use POP3 in mail accounts, only IMAP or Exchange protocol. Then I didn't backup emails. IMAP works as backup.

You can do these steps:

- write list of apps you have installed

- check if these apps are using iCloud or any different cloud and save logins, or you can save data from these apps by the iTunes your computer if supported.

- create screenshots of each screen

- create screenshot or write list of favorites contacts

- photos you can save to computer or (I did it) set photo library to iCloud. If you have small free space on cloud you can buy extended space temporary for this process. ($1/50GB/month) You have to wait with restoring to complete library synchronization. You can see uploaded photos at www.icloud.com My 1000 photos/videos library takes about 7GB.

Then after this you can connect iPhone to computer and start restoring.

When restored, add manualy iCloud and Stores account. After a few minutes you will see contacts, callendar, notes are synced after first use. Dont forget turn on photo library on iCloud, you can do it later.

Next you can add your other accounts (I'm using Gmail) and install apps. You can do it from the iPhone or you can download apps with iTunes and sync later.

If you are using offline maps, you will have to download maps again.

If you have personal ringtones, you have to sync from iTunes, then if you had presonal ringing for contacts, after syncing ringtones will works as before.

Set all settings you have to change from default, for example I disable Siri recommendations on spotlight or turn off GPS functions for ads and apps I don't want to allow GPS.

A complete phone wipe with no backup restore is the most radical approach; a cure that is almost worse than the disease. I would like to get more confirmation before doing that. Please let us know if spotlight is still working reliably in 2-3 weeks.

If you do this be careful to have your photos uploaded. Audiobooks may be a problem.

The claim that Spotlight failure in iOS 9 is due to a backup corruption bug in iOS 8 feels credible. I wonder if the bug behaves differently between iTunes and iCloud backups. This suggests Apple could fix the problem if they were sufficiently motivated.

For now I'll wait and see what else we learn.

I'll inform you

I tried all the suggestions. I have an iPhone 6 plus. Here is what finally worked for me. I went in to spotlight search and turned everything on including siri suggestion. I didn't have to restart my phone or anything it just started working after everything was switched to on. Next I went back in and turned off the stuff I didn't want search and it is still working. So before you reset your wipe your phone try that simple solution.

This bug is a function of using an alternate keyboard with spotlight. It is known to Apple with not fix other than stop using alternate keyboards

You'll want to see how things are in a week or two. I've "fixed" this bug many different ways, but only briefly.

I'm using the standard keyboard Steven.

After reading all the comments and experimenting, I offer the following conjectures:

1. In Settings → General → Spotlight Search → SEARCH RESULTS turn ON ALL toggles. This state seems to make the problem disappear On my iPhone 6.

2. If one turns OFF one or more toggles, the problem is more likely to return. If it does, force-close some recent apps. The more toggles that are turned OFF, the more prevalent the problem.

3. After toggling some SEARCH RESULTS toggles, Spotlight Search takes some time to resume working again, suggesting that when toggles are changed, iOS starts reindexing.

4. Perhaps iOS examines if all the toggles are turned ON, then it sets an internal flag to inhibit execution of some code that causes Spotlight to hang.

These are my empirical observations. Are others observing the same behavior?

OKay, so this has got to be RAM related--if I force quit all running apps by using the "hold power button until 'slide to power off' screen comes up, then hold down home button until screen disappears and returns you to homescreen" trick (seriously, I just found out about this a few months ago!), Spotlight Search immediately begins working again. I've actually resorted to doing this a couple times per day, since it's quicker than rebooting, switching language and back again, etc.

Nice trick!

Is easier for me just to force-quit last few apps -- mostly my killer is Reeder.app, which must be a serious RAM-hog.

RAM definitely plays a role: http://tech.kateva.org/2016/04/ios-9x-spotlight-bug-explained.html

Of course other bugs may contribute to RAM exhaustion.

I don't expect a fix before iOS 10 -- and I'd be surprised to see a fix even then.

thanks! this worked for me after trying many things with no luck

I discovered this way to clear up memory on another site.

I was going to write this up but I see you had already done it.

This does seem to work and it very easy and fast to do.

Thanks.

Interestingly, I've found that having a Google's Board third party keyboard installed on my phone seems to improve the percentage of times that Spotlight Search actually works and returns results. It seems to work better if Gboard is the keyboard that starts up when you try to perform a search. If you then uninstall the third party keyboard, search almost invariably ceases to work once again.