Spotlight not searching in Time machine or external drives

Question

Level 1

8 points

Spotlight not searching in Time machine or external drives

For a few versions of Mac OS now I have not been able to search for what I know exists in my time machine backups using spotlight. I have indexed, I have the drive in the spotlight preferences. I have downloaded paragon from Seagate website (its a seagate 1tb drive). Nothing I try works its really annoying. Especially as I remember that in maybe snow leopard it worked perfectly, then one version came along and now spotlight is mostly useless.

Anyone have any suggestions or sympathy

Thanks

Posted on Mar 5, 2018 12:27 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 5, 2018 12:31 PM in response to JZJZJZJZJZJZ

Fix broken Spotlight in High Sierra

Open the Terminal in the Utilities’ folder. Copy each line then paste it at the Terminal’s prompt and press RETURN.

sudo mdutil -a -i off

sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight*

sudo mdutil -a -i on

sudo mdutil -E

This should cause Spotlight to begin indexing the drive. During this time you may find the computer is slower than normal. This is OK. Don’t use spotlight or do searches until indexing has finished. This could take several hours so be patient.

Please note that there are spaces in the above commands.

Reply

Answer 2

JZJZJZJZJZJZ Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2018 5:38 PM in response to Kappy

Thank you that sounds promising. When I paste the first command in it says password with a key symbol. I can't type anything here- what I should I do?

Many thanks

Reply

Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Mar 5, 2018 5:49 PM in response to JZJZJZJZJZJZ

Make sure the drives aren't in the Privacy tab in System Preferences/Spotlight.

Reply

Spotlight not searching in Time machine or external drives

Similar questions