PDF text search problem in Preview for Mac OS Mojave

This bug drove me nuts! I fixed it by trying two things:

• Switched off all markup extensions in system preferences. These features were added in the latest Mojave update, I thought they might be related somehow.
• I found a folder called searchindexes and deleted its contents:

~▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨SearchIndexes⁩

The folder's size was about 200 mb in my case.

I think it was the second step that resolved the issue, so try that first. Test to see if everything is working properly before deleting the contents by emptying the trash.

I also tried reindexing spotlight, installing a beta version of Mojave, downgrading to a stable build again, copying the preview.app from an older system... nothing worked! I'm still having troubles with images not being displayed in some pdf's, very annoying. There's something seriously wrong with preview 10.1, hope they'll fix it!

And I have experienced no PDF search issues using the released Mojave 10.14 (18A391). I have a wide variety of PDF created by all manner of applications including Ghostscript, TeX, InDesign, LibreOffice, Affinity Designer, and the Apple PDF Context.

For the same PDF that you had search issues, does the search work when using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC?

I have the same problem and i like to add that complete closing of preview and opening the pdf from finder leaves the PDF unsearchable. Closing the PDF in preview and opening it from preview again works.

Rvb1405 wrote:

I have the same problem and i like to add that complete closing of preview and opening the pdf from finder leaves the PDF unsearchable. Closing the PDF in preview and opening it from preview again works.

Very good. That's what I said.

FWIW, I found with some PDFs, I had to open a PDF, try doing a search which failed, close the PDF, then open the same PDF, search again and it worked. Very mysterious.

I have the same problem with text searches not returning any results, even though they worked fine prior to the OS upgrade. Restarting Preview does not seem to make a difference. I also find that certain images no longer consistently display. Both of these issues are occurring within iBooks on my up-to-date iPhone, so I'm guessing there's some shared underlying code that's breaking PDFs.

I had the same problem and can confirm that the second step (removing content of ~▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨SearchIndexes⁩) solved the problem.

I can confirm that too: just updated to macOS Mojave, unsearchable PDF [it was searchable in previous version] open in Preview, just closed it, reopened and search worked again. Thanks a lot for the trick, but Apple will have to solve this, opening/closing/reopening is not a solution for people that, like me, do work all day long doing searches inside PDFs.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

Hi Ferrán,

Try deleting the content of this folder:

(Username)▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨SearchIndexes⁩

Try first before emptying the trash!

Arie

This worked for me: Restarting the computer was suggested on another forum. It did not work for me but it gave me the idea:

I repaired the permissions on my home folder;

and did a first aid on the HDD in DiskUtility.

then a restart (some people repair permissions 2x with restarts in between).

Everything works again perfectly.

If Preview doesn't work, why not try some other PDF viewers, most of the PDF viewers are free to download and use, such as Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, they allow users to search PDF. Of course, there are online free PDF readers, such as Google Docs, PDFBuddy, etc.

FWIW, I found with some PDFs, I had to open a PDF, try doing a search which failed, close the PDF, then open the same PDF, search again and it worked. Very mysterious.

I haven't done an extensive search so perhaps there aare more than I realize. You can drop a bug report to Apple here…

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Just change the feedback type to bug report.