Spotlight – Fixing Spotlight Can’t Find Apps or Folders on macOS

indexingmacossearchspotlight

My Spotlight can't find any apps, even the native ones. It only returns results from web searches. With a little googling I found out that a pretty common solution to that is to rebuild the indexes. The problem is I can't do that: I tried a solution using the os interface (solution 1), but got the following error message:

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An then I tried a manual solution, using the terminal (solution 2), but then this happened:

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I don't know what else to try. Does anyone have been through that?
I'm using El Capitan latest version (10.11.6). Thanks!

PS.: I tried to post the link to each solution, but I can't post more than 2 links because of my reputation. If someone needs them, I can share on the comment section.

Best Answer

Obviously, Spotlight's index is misbehaving, and you did the right thing using the mdutil command. If repeating that command merely provides the same "Index is already changing state..." result, then the situation requires you to manually remove Spotlight's data directory. It's simple enough to do and it's perfectly safe, but it would still be wise to run a backup before proceeding. Then:

1.) In the Terminal, issue the command

sudo rm -r /.Spotlight-V100

2.) Restart in Safe Mode

  • Restart your Mac, and immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key.
  • Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.

3.) Restart (in standard mode) after Safe Mode startup is complete. Spotlight will begin indexing using the preferences you have set for it.

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