Big Sur Notes search not working

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Big Sur Notes search not working

Since switching to a new MacBook Air 13 M1 with Big Sur 11.0.1 Notes search does not work. All of my Notes are there (more than 2000). But if I use the general search box in the top right of the Notes window, whatever I type if finds zero results.

Search is working fine in Notes on my iPhone and iPad. Also Find within notes works ok, just general search.

I have also noticed that Notes do not come up in Spotlight search. This is a major issue because I search notes all the time to go back to previous ones.

I have tried turning off Notes in iCloud (which removes them all), then killing the Notes app and turning on Notes in iCloud again which after a few minutes downloads them all. But the search issue still persists.

Anyone else have this problem or a workaround?

MacBook

Posted on Nov 23, 2020 4:33 AM

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Answer 1

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graham_h Author

Level 1

43 points

Nov 23, 2020 7:43 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks Luis. I ran your command and it took a while to reindex, but didn't immediately fix the problem so I did some other things and eventually this worked. So somewhere in these three steps is the right answer.

I reindexed spotlight using the command you suggested in terminal window: sudo mdutil -E /
I went to System Preferences, then Spotlight, Search Results tab, then unticked Other (which includes Notes functionality), exited System Preferences, went back in then re-ticked Other in Search Results
Rebooted

It's now working - yay! Thanks so much for your help

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Answer 2

Nov 23, 2020 7:24 AM in response to graham_h

That's strange. Search in Notes can find everything, in the notes themselves, in attachments, even text in images... and it's very fast, too, in my 16" MBP.

You may want to try having Spotlight reindex your drive.

Paste this into a Terminal window and press return:

sudo mdutil -E /

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Big Sur Notes search not working

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