Q: Spotlight - disable Internet search does not work
I cannot disable Internet search in Spotlight. I've followed the instructions in OS X El Capitan: About Spotlight Suggestions and Spotlight still searches the Internet even after a cold reboot. In System Preferences>Spotlight>Search Results I've verified that "Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Spotlight and Lookup" is not checked and "Bing Web Searches" is also not checked as well as verifying that "Spotlight Suggestions" is not even in the list. Location services are not enabled for Spotlight.
This is frustrating and time-consuming because every search for a file on my hard drive has the search results finding it and then quickly overlaying five or six unrelated Internet search hits that I must "deny" to get back to the search results for the file. Most of the time I even need to redo the Spotlight search because the first search is the first Internet web site that was suggested by Spotlight.
OS X 10.11.5 on MacBook Pro 13-inch mid-2012
Posted on Jul 7, 2016 3:24 PM