Spotlight won't search Documents or OneDrive since Tahoe update

Whenever I have problems with Spotlight (more common since Sonoma), I nuke the .Spotlight-v100 directory, restart indexing, and log out and back in to make it re-index. The first command nukes the folder, and it may or may not restart indexing. So, I add the other two to do that, but it still usually needs a restart or log out/in.

sudo mdutil -X /; sudo mdutil -i on; sudo mdutil -E /

I don't use OneDrive, but as a Microsoft Cloud service, I would be surprised if Spotlight could index it over the Internet, even with a local OneDrive application installed.

Revisit System Settings > Spotlight and confirm that you have Results from System Documents and Folders enabled, and that in Search Privacy, your Macintosh HD folder is not in there. For Documents, click on the i⃝ adjacent to it and ensure all categories in that new panel are selected. Nothing quite like Apple obfuscating things for the sake of new design…

There is a Tahoe community that you would need to currently be in before clicking "Ask the Community" above and then your post would appear in the Tahoe community.

I guess we lost the progress bar in Spotlight that if you typed in a letter or word it would show a progress bar of Spotlight indexing.

No, it's still there, but when it gets stuck, it doesn't show. A restart or log out/in usually gets it going.

Does Finder search work?

From what I've seen, Spotlight searches are rather buggy so far in Tahoe. I suspect it's because the functionality of Spotlight was significantly expanded with the update. Hopefully, it improves with point updates. A nice, if ironic, example that sums it up for me is searching for the definition of a word:

Bugs can be reported to Apple here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

If you want to launch the Dictionary application with a word definition from Spotlight in Tahoe, then press return right after the word entry and the dictionary application will launch with that definition.

VikingOSX wrote:

If you want to launch the Dictionary application with a word definition from Spotlight in Tahoe, then press return right after the word entry and the dictionary application will launch with that definition.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f86ab683-c7b0-4b5a-9c1c-43b3c16cb930

Thanks, but that's not the point. Typing the word then clicking on the Dictionary category should bring up a definition of the word. It doesn't. Clearly, the Dictionary application has a definition for the word, but Spotlight isn't showing it. That's a bug. If I misspell the word, then I get the definition as a top level result.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I have no idea how to do all that, I'm afraid. Not that technical!

You can’t copy, paste, type a password, and restart? But, you shouldn’t do that if you really have no idea what it does.

FWIW, I have no problems searching Documents with Spotlight. I don't have OneDrive installed so I can't speak to that other than to say, there have been some reports OneDrive causes issues.

What's interesting is almost no entries are found under the Apple tab in the Dictionary app.

I have it turned off, normally, but turned it back on to test:

I can get results for "malfunction" in Spotlight. I was only pointing out, in the Dictionary app, only words related to Apple are found under the Apple tab. Makes sense I suppose.

FWIW, the "Dictionary" tab apparently only searches the Apple Dictionary.

dialabrain wrote:

FWIW, the "Dictionary" tab apparently only searches the Apple Dictionary.

Ok, still a complete fail. Spotlight is a train wreck.