Iphone spotlight search

I don't know when this started, but on my iPhone 4S running iOS5, the spotlight search has stopped working. You can "swipe" to the left and see the keyboard come up, and you can type normally, but nothing happens. The only thing that makes it work is quitting all open applications and powering off/on. But even then, it only works a SINGLE time, then back to the same issue. Anyone know of any fix or is this an iOS5 issue?

Same problem over here in Germany...
Got the iPhone 4S and Spotlight search didn't work properly right from the start. After the upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 it is still the same. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't work at all. I have now switched off spotlight search for mail and it seems to work now.
But for me the search through my mails is the most important and useful one. So with that turned off spotlight's kind of useless for me...
But if that many people do have this problem Apple is going to fix that. They have to!
Cheers,
Marius

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Possible to disable iPhone Spotlight Search page?

I understand a lot of people use the Spotlight search feature on their iPhones to launch apps, find documents, songs and whatever.
Personally I have no need for it as I only use a very few basic apps, no documents and 2 playlists.
What I would like to do is disable that 'page' completely as I accidentally swipe to it every week or so and then have to swipe back to find what I was looking for. Just trying to make things a bit less annoying. A quick internet search of this issue found a fair number of people in the same situation.
Note: I've already set double-tapping the Home button brings up my few favourite phone numbers. I'm guessing someone will read the topic title, glance at the post and reply with "duh, just change the double-tap home button settings lol".

There is no way to disable the search page unless you jailbreak. Even then, I'm not familiar with an app that does what you are looking for. Sorry...

Spotlight search top hits problems in iphone 5 ios 6

I upgraded from Iphone 4s ios 5.1.1 to Iphone 5 ios 6.02 yesterday. (Att to verizon, but not relevant to this post)
On first glance at spotlight search on new iphone 5, I thought for sure the index for my spotlight search was totally corrupt. If I start typing 'Hol' for holly, after h or o she should come up as a top hit...instead my top hit is Chris Luxxxx (nothing to do with H or O)...I keep typing...top hit area totally disappears and Holly xxxx shows in middle of very long list of what would appear to be totally unrelated contacts. I have to get to Holly Bo before the list is down to 4 names...and 3 of those aren't related to her (on the surface....)....and top hits still doesn't pop up?? I still had my 4s next to me...and the results were night and day different...and the iphone 5 were so totally irrelevant compared to the 4s for what I was trying to do (just look up a contact...the thing i use spotlight search for most!?!?)
NOTE:
1) At this point, I had already disabled all categories but 'contacts for my spotlight search to minimize the hundreds matches I was getting in all kinds of categories that looked irrelevant......and to focus on what was going on with my contacts.
2) My contacts are synched with MS Exchange config connected to google apps account
3) I have about 1500 contacts and 1700 other contacts (email addresses only), and TONS of notes in contact 'comments' fields (foreshadowing here....'comments' fields....)
After about 60 minutes of thinking the index for my records was corrupt...and reboots and resets and internet searches..I tried thinking differently....and I started looking at the 'comments' fields in my contacts...and whoooaaaa....arghhhhh...
It appears spotlight is now indexing 'comments' section of contacts now as well many other fields in the contact records that I don't believe were previously indexed.........and apple is NOT not prioritizing the results by any fields (like giving first name, last name, business name top hit result priority)....and I know for a fact it did not use index notes..because i needed that function so I downloaded an app to do that....I found the fact that it did not index 'comments' section annoying, but tolerable...now they they are indexing it, but with poor implementation and no prioritization, spotlight has become a great tool for locating **** near anything on my phone...but a really crappy short cut to get to the contacts I wanted to get to....a better implementation of prioritization of 'top hits' would go a long ways...
Back to my searches again....when I searched 'Ho'.........Chris Luxxxis showed up first as a 'top hit'....made no sense at all....but this is what I pieced together.....e he was the most recent phone call I made, and 'ho' is in the 'comments' section of his contact info 6 times........in the words home, home inspector, house masters, house password.....arghhhhh.....I did a lot more searches...and made some phone calls, and when I ran same search again....Chris Luxxxx was not longer an immediate top hit!?!? ****...I don't need a short cut to recent calls in my top hits spotlight search!?!? It's not the magic genie!!!! And when applied like that..it just makes a huge bowl of spaghetti!!
I thought...okay...well, overall it's a better tool for finding EVERYTHING on my phone, just crappier for shortcutting to contacts to make calls and send emails....(i never used the contacts section of my phone on 4s for 3 years...just used spotlight, and it was awesome, easy and fast and got me to my contacts better than any other search system on any device i'd ever had).......So I thought.....ok so maybe I'll just have to used my contacts area more now to get to my contacts........and guess what...it appears the same darn alogrythim for search results there!!!
Apple has obliterated the concept of top hits in spotlight search..and made finding the common items in the phone like contacts a heck of a lot more typing....I only have 1 Holly in my contacts....and I have to type 'Holly Bow' before she is the sole contact shown...and I have to get to 'Holly B' before the list is down to 15 results....oh....but if I recall this issue and start with her last name...only need to get three letters in to find her...unfortunately, but its individuall relevent...ie another contacts last name is a bomb for searching, but first is quick....
Apple use to think for their users...they assumed what was most important given a spot in an application...and overall, made some decent decisions for the non technically oriented....(personally, I didn't like it...been a pc guy for 20 years..and a programmer...drove me nuts, but had a place for their customer base and nice if what you did with your computer was inline with the applications apple designed their machines to be great at....)...and I loved my iphone 4s compared to too many config options and poor implementation on windows phones ...and i'm still an iphone fan...for it's simplicity and lack of total cusomization actually (i get my creative juices flowing doing things other than customizing smart phones)........but in this case, too much info can be as bad or worse than not enough if you don't include some controls to start limiting relevance somehow....
I'm 90 minutes into this...guess now that I seem to have concluded what's up...I can start working with it or around it...but it's a big departure for where spotlight was...and while it offers more...for me, it's offering a lot less for my hourly and daily needs.
If my assumptions about these changes are wrong or anyones figured out how to get top hits useful again, please advise.
thx

Try at total shut down of Safari, double click on the home button then find the Safari app, hold you finger on the app for a few secs then tap the red minus sign to close the app. Re-launch Safari then give it a try.

Is there any way to actually delete messages from my iPhone? I have already synced my iPhone, updated it, and deleted all of my backups but the messages I have "deleted" still appear in the spotlight search.

Is there any way to actually delete messages from my iPhone? I have already synced my iPhone, updated it, and deleted all of my backups but the messages I have "deleted" still appear in the spotlight search.

If you already have an iPhone backup or an iCloud backup, just follow the instructions on the page below
http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/iphone/20888066
If you didn't back up your iPhone, try to use WhatsApp Pocket to recover your chats:
http://www.fireebok.com/whatsapp-pocket.html

IPhone spotlight doesn't search job titles for contacts

I think this is so strange that you can't find a contact in your iPhone by searching for job title. Is there a way to turn this on somehow? Some setting I'm missing?
I'm imagining the bathroom sink springing a major leak:
"Honey! Grab the iPhone and call the plumber!"
"What's his name?"
"I can't remember right now! There's water spraying everywhere! Just search for plumber and you'll find him..."
Not gonna find him. Enjoy your leak.
Seems like a strange oversight. Spotlight on the computer at least brings up a couple of matches.
Weird. No?

Obviously the more fields that are searched the slower the search will be, but I would really like it to search all fields even if it does take longer...
My 10 year old Handspring Prism smartphone did it
What fields to search could be a selectable feature within the OS.
I've submitted a suggestion as well...

IPhone 4S ios 6.1.2 Spotlight Search not Working!!!

Hi Guys,
I recently upgraded by iphone 4s to ios 6.1.2 and now i found out that the spotlight search is not working.
when i try to search a contact and press search the keyboard slides down and the screen is empty does not show anything.
Pls help what do i do?

thanks for replying !!
I checked it all the tabs are selected but still i cant see any thing i searched.
Deafult if the one i am searching for it should display search the web even thats not being displayed !!
Can you think of some thing that will solve my issue?

Are messages sorted by date when you use spotlight search on iphone / ipad?

When you use spotlight search on an ipad or iphone, and you are searching specifically for text messages, how are the results sorted?
it doesnt look like they sort by date modified, or do they?

i mean Imessages not SMS messages

With the iphone 4s sometimes the spotlight search does not work and you must restart the device. There will be an update that will fix the problem?

with the iphone 4s sometimes the spotlight search does not work and you mustrestart the device. There will be an update that will fix the problem?

Hi. I have 3 different casemate hard cases and i have been experiencing same problem.

Music purchased on my iPhone appears in spotlight search and on Windows iTunes, nowhere else?

I have never had this problem before, I bought some music on iTunes using iPhone, no problem with downloading but they only show up under spotlight search.
They're in my PC iTunes library, and I can move them to whatever playlist I need to, but they will not appear in any iPhone playlist I try and sync them to.
So far I've tried creating new smart playlists, removing and resyncing all audio content, re-downloading from iTunes Store and iCloud. Anyone know why these new songs refuse to placed in any of the iPhones playlists? (Including purchased) they must be on the iPhone because they appear in spotlight search, right?

Hi there michaelleahy85,
You may find the information in the article below helpful.
Download past purchases
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519
-Griff W.

Spotlight search on iPhone 5 not going to selected text message

Hi all,
I'm having a problem with my new iPhone 5 and the Spotlight search when looking for text messages.
When searching for old texts the phone doesn't go to the specific message it has found, instead it only goes to the most recent message the relevant sender has sent.
My old 4 used to go to the specific message searched for. Has this feature been disabled on the 5 or is it just a fault? A friend of mine with a 5 also has this issue.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Matt

When you "delete" some kinds of items from the iPhone, they don't actually get deleted. Instead, they're marked for deletion by the operating system and hidden so that they appear deleted. But they're still on the phone. Only when you sync your iPhone with iTunes are they truly deleted.
As far as I know, there are only a couple ways to truly and permanently delete SMS messages from your iPhone:
Sync - Since syncing with iTunes is what actually erases items you've marked for deletion. If you delete an SMS on your iPhone and then sync your iPhone, the message really will be gone for good.
Remove Messages from Spotlight Search - Your deleted SMS messages can't appear in a Spotlight search if Spotlight isn't looking for them in the first place. You can control what apps Spotlight searches in and which it ignores. To check this:
From your home screen, tap Settings
Tap General
Scroll about halfway down the screen and tap Spotlight Search
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap Messages to uncheck it.

Spotlight Search Not working on iPhone 6 plus (VZW)

I have VZW iPhone 6 Plus and when I try to use Spotlight Search feature (by swiping down on the screen) no results show. It will only pull up items after I've tapped the icon to open the app, Then the next time I search it shows. However, if I search for an app I haven't used in a while no results show. It won't even provide any suggestions any more. I like this feature so I won't have to swipe several screens to find an app. It also allows me to put apps in folders and only have 2-3 screens. What's the fix?

This is a widespread issue and resetting the phone, as many people experiencing this issue have tried, does not resolve it. Restarting does, but only temporarily. Please leave feedback with Apple so that they can work on a fix for this very irritating bug.

Iphone 6, "spotlight search" freezes after 8.2 update

Is anybody experiencing the spotlight search " web freeze" after updating iPhone to ios 8.2?
Swiping down anywhere on your iPhone screen brings down spotlight search feature (can't be on a app icon, or at the top/bottom screen for this to work). Very handy feature allowing you to search your iPhone, it's apps, and the web for instant access of what you search- nice! And tapping on the search results connects you to it. So searching google, for example gives results of google on the web, google app in iPhone apps, and anything else. But now this nice feature has stopped here after the update of ios 8.2. Pressing on the search links, beyond anything contained in the iPhone, comes to a "freeze screen" of what's being searched, and no connection, and the only solution is to back out by pressing the front iPhone button.
1. Phone has internet access and no problem on other apps such as google, chrome, YouTube, iPhone buy apps, ... etc. on the phone
2. Plenty of data left, Wi-Fi and internet usage not the issue
3. Wife's iPhone 6 has not been updated- no problems, and spotlight search was working properly on my phone before update

I finally got this problem to resolve after messing around (hooking up to a laptop ios update) and rebooting my iPhone 6. Could be a iPhone glitch during updating to 8.2. I'm still puzzled though, so if anybody gets this problem, try what I did. If it's still a problem go see a apple store. My wife is wondering now if she wants to update her iPhone 6.

Why is spotlight search on my iPhone and iPad not find any apps?

Spotlight search has been unable to find applications on my iPhone and iPad (6 and Air, both running 8.1.2) since December. I try to search for a banking app, for example, and it suggests "It came upon a midnight clear" from my iTunes library. If I search for iPages, spotlight suggests a nice opera. or an email from a time-sharing promotional email. What is going on? I thought this might have been me, but it is clear now this is a bug and is extremely annoying. It would be really helpful if someone would fix this. I have tried all the obvious work-arounds, which might (or might not) make the problem disappear for a while, it always comes back.

Perhaps you are spelling the name of the apps wrong. Try pages or the name of your banking app.

Spotlight search display for my iphone 6 is behaving abnormally... Why?

why its displaying like this?

Hi ejstiffler,
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It looks like your iPhone 6 is not displaying normally when using Spotlight search.
It can be difficult to say why this happens, and I'd recommend first restarting your iPhone:
Restart or reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
If the behavior continues, you may need to back up your data and restore iOS to factory settings using iTunes:
Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings - Apple Support
Sincerely,
Jeremy

IPhone 4S - Spotlight Search Lag

Have found from day 1 with my iPhone 4S that 'sometimes' when going to spotlight search, approximately 1 in 4 times it can take anything up to 90 seconds to list any results from my search.
With all other iPhone's and IOS versions I've used a search result appears within a few seconds at the very most.
What's going on? Any ideas how to rectify this?

I just realised the search also picks up the address of the person so when I start typing the 1st few letters it searches all my contacts including their addresses, surely I should be able to change this somewhere?

Iphone spotlight search

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