6 Fixes for Spotlight Search Not Working on Mac

Quick Tips

• If spotlight search isn’t working on your Mac, start your solution hunt with the basics, like restarting and updating your Mac.
• You can even check if you’ve set the right shortcuts for Spotlight Search.
• If none work, open Disk Utility > tap on the First Aid icon.

Basic Fixes

• Restart Mac: If you’re having issues with spotlight search, restart your Mac to fix temporary glitches.
• Update Mac: Issues with spotlight search could be caused by bugs. To remove them, we suggest updating to the newest macOS version. See if that fixes the problem.
• Check spacebar on Mac: Apple announced a program to replace the keyboard for free for the affected MacBooks in 2016. If you are one of the unfortunate cases with butterfly MacBook keys, contact Apple service centers for help.

Fix 1: Check Spotlight Keyboard Shortcuts

You need to ensure you are hitting the right keys to fire up Spotlight Search on Mac. Here’s how.

Step 1: Click on the Apple icon at the top left > select System Preferences.

Step 2: Now, go to the Keyboard menu.

Step 3: Slide to the Shortcuts menu. Then, select Spotlight from the sidebar. After this, check the box for Show Spotlight search.

Fix 2: Restart Spotlight Services

You can force close the Spotlight service on Mac and restart it. Here’s how.

Step 1: Hit the Cmd + Space, type Activity Monitor, and hit Enter.

Step 2: Click on the search bar and type spotlight.

Step 3: Select Spotlight and hit the x (cross) mark at the top.

Fix 3: Check Categories to Search Through Spotlight

Spotlight allows you to search through all the folders on Mac. If you have disabled a specific category on Spotlight, the service can’t search through it. Follow the steps below to enable relevant categories for Spotlight.

Step 1: Click on the Apple icon in the top-left corner and select System Preferences (or System Settings).

Step 2: Select Spotlight.

Step 3: From the Search Results tab, enable all categories and close the app.

Step 4: If you have excluded a specific folder on Mac, you need to remove it. Switch to the Privacy tab.

Step 5: Select the folder and hit the – (minus) icon at the bottom.

We had previously excluded the Downloads folder from the Spotlight Search and kept getting confused about why Spotlight did not search through the Downloads. This fixed the issue for us.

Fix 4: Troubleshoot Disk Errors

If your Mac disk has issues or errors, Spotlight will have trouble finding files on it. To fix such errors, you can use the default Disk Utility tool.

Step 1: Open Disk Utility.

Step 2: Select First Aid icon at the top and run the tool to repair the disk.

Fix 5: Reindex Spotlight Search

There is no direct way to reindex Spotlight Search on Mac. We will exclude Macintosh HD from the Spotlight Search and delete the rule. Here’s how.

Step 1: Click on the Apple logo at the top left and select System Preferences (or System Settings).

Step 2: Go to Spotlight.

Step 3: Select Privacy.

Step 4: Select + icon at the bottom and select your Mac from the sidebar.

Step 5: Select Macintosh HD and click on Choose.

Once you ask Spotlight not to search through Macintosh HD, click on it and select the minus (-) button.

Fix 6: Reactivate Spotlight Index

You have an option to reactivate the Spotlight index from Terminal. Let’s use it and fix Spotlight Search not working on Mac. To do so, open Terminal on your Mac. Run the following command and hit Enter to authenticate.

sudo mdutil -Ea