spotlight search iOS 9 contacts not showing in results

I upgrade to iOS 9 this week excited about the new search feature. The only thing I used spotlight for on iOS 8 was quickly pulling up a specific contact. It seems Apple has created a iOS that returns everything except the obvious result I'm looking for and when I search for a name everything under the sun returns except the contact card I am looking for. I feel like it should be called "unnecessarily complicated and unintuitive search." Is anyone else experiences this? Does anyone have a fix?


-Andrew

iPhone 6, iOS 9, Spotlight Search

Posted on Sep 18, 2015 7:05 AM

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Nov 28, 2017 4:10 PM in response to acesport14

Had the same problem in iOS 11 along with email app freezing then crashing. Here's how I fixed it. First I downloaded all my photos off of iCloud. That took a couple days. Then I made sure my contacts were synced. Went to the garage and selected a 2 LB hammer and beat the everloving crap out of my POS iPhone. Picked up a Samsung galaxy phone (the cheapest model) and have never been happier. After 7+ years of steadily worsening "updates" I'm done and oh so happy.

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Sep 18, 2015 7:15 AM in response to Sam2018

Yep. When I type a person's full name it will bring up some obscuring music videos in bing, a calendar event from 2 weeks ago, 5 emails from 4 months ago but no contact card. So frustrating. What a giant step backwards. And don't get me started on the new podcast app. I think they let Microsoft design it for them.

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Sep 18, 2015 7:18 AM in response to acesport14

Same problem. I solved it by shutting down all the spotlight switches in Preferences/General/Spotlight. Then restart the phone by pressing Home and Side buttons at the same time.


Finally, toggle on only the contact switch in spotlight. Wait for a few minutes and all the contacts must appear now.


Later, you can enable other searches if you want.


I hope this can solve the problem to anyone.


Fernando

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Sep 18, 2015 7:26 AM in response to acesport14

Just downloaded IOS9 on my iPhone 5 and seem to have all functions EXCEPT phone function: NO CONTACTS, NO CALL HISTORY NO FUNCTION ON number keypad. I can't use my phone as a PHONE!!!!! it seems i am not an exception. WHAT TO DO I am am ready to throw my 'non' phone out the window. Thanks Apple!!! I await my new IPHONE 6 next week with much trepidation!!

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Sep 18, 2015 6:37 PM in response to acesport14

I turned off everything but Contacts for the spotlight search, and now it returns nothing. Any more suggestions? It certainly should show contacts, but it doesn't and I've turned the phone off and on. It makes no sense as reason and logic say it should work.

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Sep 19, 2015 9:00 AM in response to fersoft2009

Yes, this worked on my 5S. Only thing different was just shut down phone and manually restarted. Did not turn back on most of the searchable items. Ridiculous that something as fundamental as the Search was made incapable of prioritizing Contacts as updated.

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Sep 19, 2015 10:49 AM in response to fersoft2009

I followed your directions exactly and it did absolutely nothing. I have only "contacts" on under General\Spotlight Search and no contacts show up at all. The thirty or so "groups" of contacts that I have are no longer alphabetized in iOS 9. I wonder if the problem is in the iOS version of Contacts.


I just figured it out folks - When I just added a new contact to a new group that I created guess what? That contact showed up in Spotlight Search!


Get to work Apple. I don't think there is going to be an easy workaround for this one.

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spotlight search iOS 9 contacts not showing in results

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