When you are using IMAP or an Exchange account, your mailbox appears empty until the entire download is complete from the server. This can take some time depending on the number of messages and attachments that you have. If you are facing Spotlight Search issues only with e-mail results, you may also consider re-building your mailboxes in Mail. To re-build, simply select the Mailbox folder on your Mail sidebar and choose Rebuild. This will confirm that your re-indexing is proceeding forward. It will list all the spotlight related re-indexing processes. In the process search field, type in ‘mdworker’. Open up a session of Activity Monitor from your Utility Folder and click on the CPU tab. You can check if the re-indexing process is working by opening up your Activity Monitor. How-To Check the Spotlight Reindexing Process Quit System Preferences and Spotlight will start re-indexing this folder/drive.

Once the drive/folder has been added to the Privacy tab, click the Remove (-) button to remove it from the list. You can also use the ‘+’ sign to browse through your MacBook and select the appropriate folders that you want to re-index.Ĭonfirm when you see the message for the folder exclusion from Spotlight results. Drag the folder or Disk that you want to re-index. To re-index when using macOS Sierra or macOS High Sierra, click on the Privacy tab. You find all your apps on the search preferences tab. Make sure that you are not excluding apps related to your search in your preferences here. Click on the Apple Menu at the top and choose System Preferences > Spotlight. It is also important that you confirm your Spotlight Search preferences. Spotlight Search Not Working on MacBook: Check Your Spotlight Preferences When First Aid completes, restart normally and see if Spotlight Search works!.

Select Run to allow First Aid to check for errors on your disk and repair them.

At the screen prompt for Recovery Mode, select Disk Utility.

Restart in Recovery Mode by holding both Command+R keys when booting up.

Mac Spotlight Search Crashing or Quitting After Entering Just A Few Letters?.

How-To Check the Spotlight Reindexing Process.Spotlight Search Not Working on MacBook: Check Your Spotlight Preferences.

Mac hard drive space disappearing