Spotlight crashes after typing a few letters since Safari 12 update

I haven't tried rebuilding the spotlight index yet, but this workaround seems to have solved it for me:

System Preferences > Spotlight

Under the Search Results tab, uncheck the "Bookmarks & History" option.

I have the same issue.

Reindexing has done nothing to help!

I am trying your work-a-round by unchecking "Bookmarks & History" option in the Spotlight pane of System Preferences.

So far it WORKS!

Thanks!

@sparky67,

Thanks again.

I posted your work-a-round in my thread on this same issue:

Spotlight Crashes Often - Despite Rebuilding Search Index

It has been extremely annoying to not be able to use Spotlight!

Once I upgrade to Mohave, I may be able to include "Bookmarks & History" option in the Spotlight pane of System Preferences, once again.

Sorry @sparky67, you're right I didn't read carefully beyond where you tried reindexing spotlight. I appreciate your post though, because this had been annoying me and it got me on the right track knowing it was related to Safari. I don't use Spotlight to look up browser history or bookmarks, so this workaround is great for me, but I understand it's not ideal for someone who likes to use it for those purposes. Hopefully they'll fix it with the next Safari update.

I can confirm that UN-checking the "Bookmarks & History" option in the Spotlight pane of System Preferences corrects the problem. Also, this problem started for me after installing the Safari V 12.0 update.

Good work finding the offender. Your workround works great for me.

What kind of testing did they do for Safari 12. I would have thought that interacting with Spotlight would have been on the list as it is a specific checkbox on the Spotlight preferences.

Somehow I don't think I will be instantly updating to Mojave when it comes out. Give it a couple of updates maybe...

@dabricka - I did rebuild Spotlight index, the easy way through Preferences and the hard way deleting the indexes, to no avail. Unchecking Bookmarks & History works, thanks so much. Spotlight is to me a critical tool and why I stay on Mac OS...that goes and so does overpriced Apple hardware. 🙂

YOU SIR, ARE A BLOODY LEGEND!!!!! Thank you so much!! I wish Id seen this before the clean install of Sierra and re-install of all software but I will take the fix anyway. I really can't thank you enough

I am running macOS Siera 10.12.6, on a MBP Retina mid 2012.

Safari's version is 12.0 (12606.2.11)

I have already tried rebuilding spotlight's index. it didn't work.

The only workaround that seems to be effective is the one pointed by the op (sparky67). I have unchecked the "Bookmarks & History" option and it stopped crashing. Lets hope it will hold, because It was getting really annoying.

I've been noticing this same problem for quite some time. It's been pretty frustrating and disruptive to my work flow. I tried reindexing Spotlight, but that did not help.

I'm very happy to have found your post. Unchecking "Bookmarks & History" seems to have solved the issue for now. I do not consider Spotlight to be fixed, but at least I have a work around.

This confirms the same problem I am having. I am on the latest version of Sierra. Spotlight disappears if I try and add a space early in a query. Anything less than six characters with a space makes it disappear. Sometimes it just vanishes as I start entering text. I'll be ****** if I waste my time reinstalling the entire operating system just to see if it resolves a problem that is Apple's job. In any case I never found spotlight all that useful or intuitive. I prefer the 'command f' way of searching from the Finder. Never quite figured out what was so special about Spotlight. Meaning it fails to replicate common sense for me in the way I look for things. It probably meets the needs of other more organised/ disciplined folk. But for the run of the mill user it is much over hyped.

I have updated to Safari 12.0.1 and the issue is resolved for me. If people are still experiencing the same problem can they check the update to Safari did in fact install, the App Store can be a bit flaky.

Click on About This Mac> System Report> Software> Installations. Click on Install Date twice so this list is ordered with most recent first. And if downloading via App Store use a cabled connection rather than WiFi.

I just had the same problem too on Sierra (10.12.6). I think I found a workaround that may be more flexible.

To me it looked like the crash happened only when searching for *a few* letters. For instance, I was searching for "It" (the name of the movie), and that's when it would crash systematically when I just typed these two letters and waited for the results. But first typing a longer word (e.g. "Itunes"), wait 1-2 seconds for the results, and then remove the extra letters, got me my results and prevented it from crashing.

HTH