Mac OS X – Spotlight not finding many files: force a rescan solved it
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/09/23
I was looking for some PDF files that I knew for sure were on my SSD but Spotlight would not find them. Looking for more obvious files I noticed Spotlight was returning hardly any files at all: somehow the index was messed up.
Years ago I also had Spotlight issues; then it would find nothing (now it did find some files) which was solved by a reboot: Spotlight refuses to be enabled on Lion: reboot helped.
Screenshot 2016-06-29 12.57.34
Now this was right after a reboot, and because Spotlight did find some files I know Spotlight was turned on (no need for mdutil tricks mentioned in After restoring fresh HDD from Time Machine Backup: No results from Spotlight).
So I dug a bit deeper and decided to try [WayBack] Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac – Apple Support with these steps:
- Search for something that returns few results (in my case Xyzzy)
- Click
Spotlight Preferences... - Go to the
Privacytab - From the
Finder, drag your disk(s) to thePrevent Spotlight from searching these locationslist. - Remove your disk(s) from that lists using the minus (-) button.
- Wait for re-indexing to complete
That worked like a charm to refresh the index: it started indexing again which took about one hour.
After a few minutes though, I found back the 32pfl7404h_12_dfu_nld.pdf I was looking for.
A second time, it had lost the index to iTunes, and found it back in about 2 hours (as the SSD was much more full).
A third time, this trick from [WayBack/Archive.is] Re-Index Spotlight from the Terminal, Re-Gain Valuable Time for Life [OS X Tips] | Cult of Mac worked:
sudo mdutil -E /
This basically re-indexes from the root (/) folder.
I find it easier than the above 6 steps (which are also on [WayBack/Archive.is] Make Spotlight Work Again [OS X Tips] | Cult of Mac).
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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