SMS Msg Spotlight Search Issue

I like that iOS4 allows you to search through your SMS messages. But it does not seem to find old messages.
For example, if I have a message from a friend, which is in one of the "Load Earlier Messages" screens, the search feature won't find it.
This makes the search feature pretty useless. The only reason I might search for a message is because it's old and I want to find it.
Am I missing something?

I agree, though I mostly run into that issue in Mail, not Messages.
Send feedback to Apple here:
http://apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Only they can fix it.

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Spotlight Search Issues

Problem Summary: Client cannot get correct search results via Spotlight.
Equipment: Mac Mini Server (2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM) running Lion Server 10.7.3
Troubleshooting steps taken so far: Disabled, cleared the index, and re-enabled Spotlight. Reinstalled Lion Server. Tested Houdahspot. Checked for any log files pertaining to mdutil in Console. Issue still persists.
Logs: Logs are not recording anything related to mdworker or mdutil.
I've attached an image of what we're seeing when we try to Spotlight search. Search criteria is a red label and comments being blank. Here's the result:
Note that every time we go back and do the same search, different results are returned.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
-=Andrew

Use the forced restart method of pressing sleep and home button together only if you have no access to the phone. Or the best way to reset is to go to settings>general>reset.
It's like,'Why would i pull the plug of my PC when I can click on start and restart?'

IOS 7 real spotlight search issue.

I swap down to bring the spotlight search. However, it doesn't search at all. There is no effect when I type in the search box or press search button. The spotlight items are configured in setting.
IOS7 and iphone 4S

First try Resetting your iPhone: Hold down the sleep and home buttons, wait for the Apple logo and let go of the buttons. If that does not work Restore your iPhone from your backup.

How to Delete Messages in Spotlight Search History without Resetting or Syncing!!

I know there are a lot of individuals dealing with this issue and if you are like me you spend hours searching "how to delete messages in spotlight search history" and it seems like every post either says to reset your phone or sync it! I'm sorry but I did not want to go through the hassle of resetting my phone but I did try to sync it which did nothing so I decided to just mess around with my settings and I believe to have found the answer to everyone's question!!
This worked for me so I really hope this works for you! Just follow the steps below:
1. Go to <settings><general><spotlight search><uncheck messages>
2. Then turn your phone off and wait a minute! Turn your phone back on and off again 2 or 3 more times while waiting a minute in between turning it off!
3. After you are done doing that go back to step 1 and <check messages>!
4. Now go to your spotlight search and those messages should be deleted! If they are deleted I would recommend going back to step 1 and <uncheck messages> so you do not have the same problem with messages showing up again in the spotlight search!
It works for Mail too! Just follow the same steps listed above but uncheck mail instead of messages or do both at the same time!!
*Here is an extra tip which will remove deleted Mail Messages, just follow the steps below:
1. Go to <settings><mail, contacts, calendars><your mail account> scroll down and click <advanced> Now click <remove> under the title Deleted Messages and you can choose to have your mail removed After One Day, After One Week, After One Month or Never.
I hope this post was detailed enough and easy to understand!
I really hope it works for you like it did for me!
Good Luck!!!

I tried this fix and it does not work.
I have read that this is a problem for a long time - years. Me, personally, I do have emails and texts from the past that are private and were deleted, that I do not want my husband or daughter to read. Many people have this complaint and have had it a long time. Why does Apple not fix it?!?
Another privacy issue is the iMessage default settings on new devices. We bought a new iPhone for my college-age daughter and received all of her text messages until we noticed it and told her. We did a temporary fix. Then I got a new iPhone and the same thing happened. I had to set up iCloud accts. for each of us so that we each have privacy that cannot be tampered with. We still share our original iTunes account. Why did that have to happen?!?
We have been Apple consumers (laptops, iPads, iPods, iPhones) for over ten years (? longer w/just desk top) w/ the same account. These breaches in privacy are upsetting!! My point here is that these breaches are unacceptable! The spotlight search issue appears to be unresolved. FIX THIS APPLE!

Iphoto Library is locked AND spotlight search stops working

This has been happening for several months.
a restart of my Mac Pro temporarily fixies it for a few days but then it happens again
I have read many threads on the iphoto locked library issue and I have tried all of the suggestions except for the download iphoto library manager.
I don't want to do that uless I have to, and because of the issue with spotlight, I think that it won't be a permanents fix
I don't know if the spotlight search issue is causing the iphoto lock or visa versa, or if there is another thing causeing both,
but after experiencing this problem many times I know that both issues happen a the same time and must be linked in some way.
restarting the mac pro (intel Xeon Dual Core os 10.7.5) solves the problem temporarily. both iphoto and spotligh search work fine after that until the next time.
I don't know what triggers it. and it's really frustrating because I don't understand how the os works and I really need to be able to use the search function for work. I need to be able to search my emails and files and it just doesn't give results except for older files and emails when this happens. the more recent files and emails are either not indexed or not coming up for some reason
my iphoto library is on a seperate drive from my operating system and it is formatted extended journaled and set to ignore permissions
I have tried deleting the iphtotlockdata file but when I do that and try to start iphoto I get a weird message saying
"the library "iphoto library" is open in iphoto. to open this library in iphoto you must quit iphoto."
I've rebuilt the iphoto library before (after restarting) but eventually the problem happens again.
not sure what else to try
thanks in advance for your help

aOne thing that I forgot to add is that I can never just restart or shutdown my computer
It always gets stuck on the grey screen at shutdown and will stay there forever if you let it. I always have to hole the power button to force it off.
Boot into Safe Mode, Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode. and then reboot normally. That will run a number of repair routines and might fix the shut down issue.
I second Terene's suggestion of using iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library.
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Spotlight web search issues outside the US?

Hi, I cannot perform any online searches using Spotlight under the Yosemite OS X. I live in the Czech Republic. Are there any geographical limitations of this feature? I tried all the suggestions posted here, nothing works. Thanks, Zed

Hi ZedVal,
I see that you are experiencing an issue with searching the web with Spotlight. Here is an article with some relevant information to this stated issue:
OS X Yosemite: Search with Spotlight
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18828
Specifically, this noted information in the article may be relevant to your question:
Note: If you turn off Spotlight Suggestions and Bing Web Searches, Spotlight searches only for items on your Mac.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
-Braden

Erased SMS appears in spotlight search. How to fix?

When you erase SMS it appears in spotlight search. I would like to know how to fix this trouble. What should I do?
Thanks a lot.

Fiery_Mustang wrote:
I found on web that regulary iTunes sync help to fix it. Is it true?
It is, for whatever reasons, the way Apple has decided the iPhone is supposed to work. Therefore, there is nothing to "fix".

Spotlight permission issue with multiple users - user A can search files from user B

Hello everybody,
i need your help with a bad and precarious spotlight issue.
Mavericks is a clean install on my 2010 MacPro and Everything runs fine - but this issue is very annoying.
User A is admin - user B a normal user.
The Problem:
If user B uses spotlight in his account, he also gets the search results from files of User A.
This meens the files in the user folder from User A and also the files on his own extra hard-drive.
For Example to get it clear to you:
On the Desk of User A is a file called "birthday-presents.rtf".
User B searches in his Spotlight "birthday" - now he gets as a result also this file from User A.
He can not open it at all - but he can se it in the spotlight search results.
This also affects the mails, calendars etc.....
This is of course very bad to User A - because his file-names aren't secure anymore.
But also User B has a problem - because his Spotlight results are much longer with a lot files he don't want to see because this files are not his ones.
What can i do?
I rebuilded the spotlight index, but this does not help.
Permissions also seem to be OK - here is a screenshot (german, but i think you catch it).

No there was no migration.
Its a complete Clean install - i only copies Files, Mailboxes, etc. manually.
Here is the result of your advise - is it OK?
Last login: Tue Jan 7 01:28:47 on console
home-MacPro:~ harry$ ls -le ~/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 harry staff    68 5 Nov 12:06 Applications
drwx------+ 30 harry staff 1020 7 Jan 02:07 Desktop
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 8 harry staff   272 5 Nov 19:42 Documents
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 4 harry staff   136 4 Dez 15:42 Downloads
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------@ 55 harry staff 1870 28 Nov 22:34 Library
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 6 harry staff   204 7 Dez 01:20 Movies
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 7 harry staff   238 7 Jan 02:04 Music
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 5 harry staff   170 4 Nov 14:54 Pictures
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx-wx-wx+ 8 harry staff   272 7 Jan 00:25 Public
0: group:everyone deny delete
home-MacPro:~ harry$

Issue with Clear widget and spotlight search.

Why does the widget from Clear not work? All it does is show quotes from people. Why does it not show my list? (I assume that that is what it is supposed to do).
Also, every time I go into settings>general>Spotlight search, and try to turn on Spotlight Suggestions and Bing Web Results, they turn them selves off as soon as I leav that screen. How can I get them to stay on?

Hi,
For metadata, which metadata are you not seeing? Are they custom properties within the PDF, and have you checked if you have crawled properties matching these?
I know there's issue with last modified on PDF's (http://sharepointfieldnotes.blogspot.no/2013/05/understanding-and-getting-sharepoint.html)
Thanks,
Mikael Svenson
Search Enthusiast - SharePoint MVP/MCT/MCPD - If you find an answer useful, please up-vote it.
http://techmikael.blogspot.com/
Author of Working with FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

Spotlight search and whatsapp

hi,
i encountering 2 issue with my iPhone 6 plus after updating to ios8.0.2
1) When accessing my Spotlight search, my home screen turn pillixelise black and white instead of blurring out my color home screen.
2) when I using my phone, a whatsapp message appeared and on top of my screen. However I wasn't wanna read that msg so i tried slide up the notice. but I was unable to slide off the notice and it will not goes off automatically Instead I need to touch on the notice and it bring me back to the whatsapp then the bar goes off
please advise
thanks

Not sure if you are using 10.10 or 10.9. In Yosemite the last option in the results list is Show all in Finder. Select this and double click on the finder Icon. This will open a new finder window with the search results in it.
Select the file you are looking for from the results and the path will be shown in the foot of the window.
Mavericks was the first one on the list of results.
Hope this helps.
PJRS

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.

Mail+Spotlight Search Not Working in Lion

I've been dealing with this problem for over a month and have not been able to fix it. Search works fine in Lion on several computers, but on my laptop it still won't do a complete search. It will only pull up emails from people in my contacts list..... no subject key word searches or people outside my contacts searches..... very frustrating! The searches also don't work in Spotlight, so I can't use spotlight as a backup.
I've tried rebuilding my mailbox.... deleting and recreating the account.... tossing out the Envelope Index folders in the Mail library... Deleting and re installing my search window, etc...... I see lot's of other people with the same issue. It's frustrating when your running your business on your computer and have to deal with a flaw in a new OS..... it was working fine in Leopard..... whats up APPLE? Please help!
Other Info:
Macbook Pro 2008 Version with 2.5 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Running 10.7.4

Glenn,
Regarding adding and deleting the System Drive from the Spotlight Privacy Tab...... I'm following your sequence, but when I come back to Spotlight Search in the menu bar it just works the same.... no mention of indexing. What's interesting is that "Mail" dosn't appear anywhere in search results when a keyword search is performed via spotlight.
Regarding the "enevelope Index Files" ..... I followed the instructions and quit and re-opened mail as instructed. When I re-opened Mail I selected "continue" and the program began to index the contents of mail for about 30 minutes. I thought that would would fix the issue, but it's still not working.
I've tried to compare the account setup from my IMAC which works fine to see if I have something setup wrong in the account, but everything looks the same.
I guess I can try to re-index again? Don't know what else to do?
Thanks,
Bill

Password protecting mail app and permanent deletion of emails so they don't appear in spotlight search

I realise that there is a temporary way to prevent this happening by unticking the 'mail' option in the spotlight search settings menu, but how do you permanently delete the emails? I assumed that when I hit delete then emptied the trash box, the mails were gone for good. But finding that they remain stored in some hidden place and can be easily accessed is very annoying! In fact, finding that other users can quickly change the settings back and have free access to my email is rather disturbing anyway, especially as there is no way to password protect my email account once i activate the mail app. the apple mail app is linked to my yahoo account, but within yahoo mail there seems to be no problem in regards to deleted mail being stored somewhere else, only within the apple app system.
So i guess id like to know, is there some way to password protect my account or do I just need to keep deleting my account before lending the ipad to someone else and then reinstating it? And is there any way to properly delete emails for good?
I would be happy just to go without the mail app and log in directly through yahoo in Safari, except that I find the notification alert when I receive a new mail very handy!!

[edit] I dragged the email I sent through the MBP Mail app (under MAILBOXES > Sent > Yahoo!) to the highlighted Sent folder (YAHOO! > Sent), and now it shows up on all Yahoo Sent folders (iPad app, web browser, phone app). Not entirely solved the issue but will use web browser to sent future emails to keep everything in sync.

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.

SMS Msg Spotlight Search Issue

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