How can i get rid of categories in Tahoe Spotlight

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Level 1

9 points

How can i get rid of categories in Tahoe Spotlight

I'm a "medium-level" OS/x user, I use it for software dev, so spend a lot of time in Terminal. Up until Tahoe, I pressed the F4 key, and a window (Spotlight, I guess?) popped up showing all apps as Icons. I typed "Term" and terminal was there, or "VM" and VMWare remained. In Tahoe this no longer works. I now have to click across a bunch of "Categories" like Productivity, Dev Tools, etc in an attempt to find the app I want.

My question - is there any way to get rid of these categories? Or move all my most-used apps into a category of my own?

iMac 27″

Posted on Nov 7, 2025 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

neuroanatomist

Level 9

55,893 points

Nov 7, 2025 8:19 AM in response to GREYCON

Press F4 the Command-1 to bring up the Applications search. After doing so, typing even one letter should show results. I typed two ("te") to narrow it down a bit (and realized I should probably get rid of TeamViewer as I no longer use it).

If your apps are not showing up reliably, you may need to rebuild the Spotlight index.

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

GREYCON Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2025 10:33 AM in response to GREYCON

Looks like the indexing trick did the job, thanks to all. In case anyone else is here in future, the solution is to open System Settings->Spotlight, and at the bottom, there's a "Search Privacy" button there. For some reason this had marked my HD as being excluded from Indexing.

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Answer 3

Nov 7, 2025 4:42 PM in response to GREYCON

GREYCON wrote:

open System Settings->Spotlight, and at the bottom, there's a "Search Privacy" button there.

For some reason this had marked my HD as being excluded from Indexing.

Good computing GREYCON ! Appreciate the report.

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Answer 4

Phil0124

Level 10

216,944 points

Nov 7, 2025 7:00 AM in response to GREYCON

What you described still works on Tahoe.

If I press F4 I get spotlight and I can type "Term and get the Terminal app to show up.

If you get the app list when pressing F4, with the title that says Applications, you start typing right there for the app you are looking for.

You don't need to click on the categories at all. Also, you can just drag the Terminal app to the dock so it's available there instead of needing to search for it.

You can also click on the A icon in the top right corner to deselect Apps group and search anywhere else.

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Answer 5

Phil0124

Level 10

216,944 points

Nov 7, 2025 9:46 AM in response to GREYCON

You can use command+shift+3 to take a screen shot of the entire screen, and then edit it in Preview to cut it down to just what you want to show.

command+shift+4 will take focus out of spotlight and close the screen, command+shift+3 will not do that.

You may need to rebuild the index for spotlight if apps aren't showing in the results.

click here ➜ Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 6

GREYCON Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2025 7:24 AM in response to Phil0124

Thanks for replying. It doesn't work for me. I type "V" and get not icons. (I expect to get VMWare). I can only get it by selecting the appropriate category and then typing "V". Your point about the Docking Bar is well taken - it's just that old habits die hard.

I'm not able to show you a screen shot, if I open "Screenshot" then it takes focus and I can't work with Spotlight - lack of user expertise there.

It does seem that oft-used apps are shown in a separate section at the top of the Spotlight window, so I'll have to get used to using that. thanks again

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Answer 7

Nov 7, 2025 7:40 AM in response to GREYCON

To take a screenshot, press Command-Shift-5, then in Options, set a timer to 5 seconds, and click Capture.

Initiate the Spotlight search. The screenshot will be taken when the set timer goes off.

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Answer 8

GREYCON Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2025 7:56 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Cool, thanks. I really must learn more about the Mac UI :-) Here is my spotlight when I type "VM" for VMWare...

And here it is when I select the Category...

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Answer 9

GREYCON Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2025 9:32 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Doesn't work like that for me. See photos. I have to click into the correct category then I can bring up apps by typing letters. I'll try an index build, thanks.

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Answer 10

Nov 7, 2025 9:34 AM in response to GREYCON

Post back if that doesn't work, next step is to 'nuke' Spotlight's caches and start it from scratch with Terminal commands.

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Answer 11

Phil0124

Level 10

216,944 points

Nov 10, 2025 8:16 AM in response to GREYCON

Glad it worked.

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