Spotlight still includes some documents in search results even after turning that off

If I turn off specific subcategories under Documents (like PDFs or images), those exclusions work correctly. However, even when Documents as a whole is turned off, files that aren't categorized by Apple still show up. For example, .pyc, .js.map, and .md (Markdown) files continue to appear, while recognized types like .cpp, .py, and .java are properly excluded.


It seems Spotlight doesn’t classify some file types under any predefined category, so they always appear in results.


I've already tried rebuilding the Spotlight index, but the issue persists.


Is anyone else experiencing the same issue? Is this be a bug in Spotlight category handling?

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Oct 22, 2025 6:15 PM

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Spotlight still includes some documents in search results even after turning that off

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