spotlight not working on Sierra

Here it is 2018 and I am having this problem. Tried what was suggested but still spotlight doesn't work. It brings up a few file that don't relate to the word I put in the search box and the ones I want to find don't come up. Using the word that is in the file name. gggrrrrr Is there a fix to this problem?

Hi,

I did this and it worked for me :

1. save my Mac with Time Capsule
2. close every program
3. open terminal
4. sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100
5. reboot

Then Spotlight returned local results correctly (mail included).

What do you see if you go to system preferences>spotlight> (tab)privacy? Any items listed there in the exclusion list?

If not: try to add the macintosh hd to the list by pressing the + sign at the bottom left and pointing it to the macintosh hd.
Then remove that item again by selecting it and pressing the - sign on the bottom left. Close system preferences again and this should re-initialize indexing.

I am getting this same error too.

When I try to force reindex by first moving MacHD into Spotlight Privacy (and later taking it out), I get "The item could not be added or removed because of an unknown error."

This problem only has occurred since we upgraded to Sierra.

And if we try to force Spotlight index update/recreation in Terminal, we always get this error: "Error: Index is already changing state. Please try again in a moment."

Please could someone from Apple help or fix this as it is very very annoying. I have the same, exactly the same as above.

I left my laptop overnight and OS seems to have mapped my drive and spotlight appears to be working ok now. But why did it stop for a week, and why can't you give it a nudge (the method above didn't work for me, as described)?

Try this in a Terminal window:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

... wait 20 seconds, then ...

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

If you now go to spotlight, it should say indexing.

See also: Re: Re: Spotlight doesnt work after Sierra upgrade

Thank you but nothing at the last two replies works. When I left it, Spotlight did eventually appear to re-index, but my automator scripts do not work (nothing too complicated just copying files out of a subdirectories - but they don't work now, because evidently even though it looks like Spotlight has reindexed it has not really done so).

This is really annoying, I wish I'd thought to Time Machine before "upgrading". Should not have trusted in Apple its just that all my other OS upgrades have worked with no hitches.

I get a Password query, then nothing. Can not re-enter in 20 seconds.

I have the same issue can't fix it tried all of the above.

note this also affects all of your Office programs as well, search function no longer works in outlook.

thanks apple for nothing this update is very BAD

1. Choose Apple  menu > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
2. Click the Privacy tab.
3. Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Click OK to confirm.
   
4. Select the folder or disk you just added, then click the Remove (–) button to remove it from the list.
5. Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the folder or disk.

To add an item to the Privacy tab of Spotlight preferences, you must have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”

If this fails and you get the wonderful error message try this

open terminal window

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

enter your password, then enter

sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/*

give it some time, 3-5min after each step, the on commands and check spotlight - do a search and if it says indexing your done, once indexing has started it can take hours to complete

sudo mdutil -E -i on /Volumes/*

sudo mdutil -a -E -i on /Volumes/*

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /