Dear All:
I have updated to Sierra; Spotlight won't find Numbers spreadsheet files even though I can see the folders on my Desktop. What's happening? I have dragged Desktop file containing the Numbers spreadsheet file into Spotlight and then removed it as recommended, so that it will re-index it, but it still doesn't seem to find any Numbers spreadsheet files. Any solutions out there? Thanks.
iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)
You need to rebuild the Spotlight index for the entire drive, not just the desktop folder. Go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy, click on the "plus" symbol on the bottom left and choose the drive labeled "Macintosh HD". Next remove it from the list using the "minus" symbol. Close system preferences. Give it some time to reindex. If you want to see the progress you can bring up Spotlight.
Dear dialabrain,
I'll give it a shot. Any idea why only Numbers spreadsheets seem to be the ones not coming up?
One reason would be that the Spotlight index needs rebuilt. Another could be not using the correct search terms. I don't currently have any Numbers spreadsheets to search for but I can make a couple to check in a bit.
I just made a simple one rather quickly and Spotlight found it. Two actually. I had one i didn't know about. 😎
Dear dialabrain,
I have found the file and have typed in the exact file name, but Spotlight still doesn't find it -- this was before I tried to rebuild, so we'll see if that helps. I know that the file is there because I have found it by means other than Spotlight and then did the search using the exact name, but Spotlight still doesn't find it. Strange. Could it be because Numbers, Pages and Keynote were just updated through the App Store to work with Sierra? I just tried without a new rebuild and it is finding Pages files...
and Siri can find the Numbers file, but not the search (without the rebuild).
FWIW, I did a spotlight search for a word that was in the spreadsheet.
You need to wait til the index is done and then check. 🙂
Dear dialabrain,
I waited, but no success. Then I decided to save the file again, selecting the latest version number, and then the indexing seemed to kick in and it appeared. I hope this works for the rest of the Numbers files. Thanks!
To my knowledge different "Recent Versions" won't show, only the last file saved.
You're welcome.
Dear All,
Much to my surprise, indexing is STILL GOING ON the next day, so you might have to wait longer than you think for Spotlight to index everything. However, I am a photographer and do have many things to index, both on the main hard drive and external discs, so I will have to learn to be patient! Thanks to all!
Spotlight won't index Numbers spreadsheet files
