When I get warnings that my HD is nearly full (Macbook Air, 64GB SSD), spotlight always loses its index of applications. That means that I can't launch Safari or Mail or other apps, which is the only thing I use Spotlight for. Only restarting helps to resolve this.
Is there a way to force Spotlight to reindex the Application folder?
Best Answer
This happens whenever I erase the free space on my hard drive (probably for the same reason -- that process creates a big file that eats up all the free space, then overwrites it, creating a low space condition in the process). Typing this command at the terminal:
will rebuild your index. Substitute your own disk's volume name in the obvious place.