You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Search not working-Sequoia 15.1 Update

Good morning. Is it? Today's daily issue: Search is not working after the Sequoia 15.1 update. I used "This Mac," Name contains "......", Everything "....."


I also tested it by pasting in a file name I had copied from a folder and no go. Oh yeah! Usually, files come up that do not correlate with the search wording! By the way, this is an annoyance occurring in previous MacOS's. How do you stop it?? I must delete a letter and type it back in to get Name Contains "....."


Research tells me I have to re-index Spotlight. Why do I have to do this? Isn't an update supposed to make things easier and better? And how does a true Mac user re-index anything- it used to be readily available?


Please help! Search is a vital function.

Mac Studio, macOS 15.1

Posted on Nov 2, 2024 6:26 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 2, 2024 7:37 AM

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac



Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support (CA)


17 replies

Nov 26, 2024 7:53 AM in response to rgbnite

I have/had the same problem. I rebuilt the index per the directions here and that worked, but every few days it stops working. The only thing that works quickly to reset the search index is to reboot my computer. Is there a quicker more permanent solution? Needless to say, I use search constantly and this is a huge pain.

Nov 5, 2024 4:32 AM in response to rgbnite

Hello! I can't believe it! I keep my transactions in organized folders. So I'm looking for a specific business name's folder, type the business name in the upper right window finder, and get a list of files and absolutely no folders! I had to trick the finder to work with a common word and go through the ridiculous list it came up with.


Attached is a screenshot sample of find results for "23-07":



I'm going to try and rebuild the Spotlight index.

Nov 18, 2024 5:21 AM in response to Boat Guy

I have several older, working Macs that are messed up. Indexing worked on one of them. I think there is a bug that interferes with indexing, and it starts with the word "security." I still have G4s running, and they work fine—steady as a rock—but they are slow and have too little memory storage. I keep them offline, away from the dominion of the software giants. To me, the problems started with MacOS Maverick.

Nov 26, 2024 4:06 PM in response to rgbnite

It's the end of November. I have rebuilt the index using every main folder: Desktop, Desktop that iCloud provided on Desktop, Shared, External Drives, and running a search for "Turkey" from Finder only. The finder only found 19 items. But I have 100's of file names with "Turkey."


I will try again while manually looking up files and folders that bear the word "Turkey." Will there ever be a "cure?" Oh yes, I love it when I run a search and get hundreds of files that have nothing to do with the word I'm searching for. I have to put up a post on that one. Stay tuned for more issues: Why is my desktop not listed under my Main User folder but under "iCloud"? Could that be the issue?

Search not working-Sequoia 15.1 Update

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.