Mac: Fixing Broken Spotlight Search

If your Spotlight Search is not working, these steps may resolve the issue and let you search for documents and files via Spotlight.

Fixing Spotlight Search

  1. Open the Terminal application (in your Applications folder, look in the Utilities folder for Terminal)
  2. Type sudo -s
  3. Enter your Carleton password
  4. type mdutil -E -a and hit enter
  5. You should see the following message:
    1. bash-3.2# mdutil -E -a
      /:
          Indexing enabled.
      /System/Volumes/Data:
          Indexing enabled.
      /System/Volumes/Preboot:
          Indexing enabled.
      bash-3.2#
  6. If you do not see the above message, Please contact the ITS Helpdesk for assistance at go.carleton.edu/helpdesk or 507-222-5999
  7. Type mdutil -i on / and hit enter
  8. You should see a message that says Indexing enabled
  9. Reboot your computer.  After logging in, you might not see Spotlight Search results immediately, but there may be a message and progress bar in your Spotlight window that says Indexing.

Need Help?

If this does not resolve your issues with Spotlight Search, or if Spotlight Search is not working and you cannot update your macOS, please contact the ITS Helpdesk for assistance at go.carleton.edu/helpdesk or 507-222-5999

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