What is spotlight search

I am trying to find audio books I bought in iTunes and it has disappeared from my iPhone 5. I've taken off iTunes Match and rebooted but nothing works

How do I do the search? When I go to spotlight search in settings everything is checked

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What does spotlight search?

Sorry for the obvious question, but is there a document / thread (I tried looking) that gives a quick summary of how spotlight works and what it looks at?
I ask as it doesn't search, for me, footnotes of Word documents (which is annoying) and companies in Address Book (which is also annoying). I'm wondering if this is a problem with my computer, or standard.
Thanks!

Instead of searching directly on drives and within files, Spotlight indexes those drives and files, and searches within the index.
Therefore everything relies on Spotlight being able to keep that index complete, accurate, and up to date (to the microsecond, as you will be constantly changing files, renaming them, moving them around, etc., in normal use).
Needless to say, Spotlight fails to do that and despite the many clever and not-so-clever fixes that are sometimes suggested in these forums, the entire concept, in my opinion and in the opinion of others, is very silly, too clever for its own good, and we wonder what Apple was thinking of.
<I'm wondering if this is a problem with my computer, or standard.>
Alas, it's standard. To find the files you're looking for, more efficaciously, more quickly, and certainly more reliably, I suggest you try EasyFind as an alternative.
EasyFind is freeware and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/index.html
12" PowerBook G4, G4 450 DP tower Mac OS X (10.3.9) on the Powerbook, and 10.4.2 on the G4 450

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.

HT201285 What order does spotlight search display??

I know that this search displays the results by app. But within the app how are the results displayed? For example, if I typed in ok, and all my text messages that have the word ok in them pop up what order are those in if any?
Also, does anybody konw exactly how long deleted messages will appear in the spotlight search? Or how far back the search goes?

I can't be certain but they appear to be in reverse chronological order.
Old messages will appear unti lthe cache gets written over (or is deleted by restoring the phone as new).

Spotlight Search? What is it for?

Tapping "Spotlight Search" Gives me a list with things I can check mark or uncheck mark ...are they important,?use a lot of data?

Spotlight serch on the far right of the iPhone's homescreen allows the user to search for emails,contacts, music, Apps, podcasts, nots, events, videos, reminders, messages, voice memos. If you have alot of apps, data on you iPhone and fell lazy to look for it to the highest purpose, you can use spotlight to either type what your looking for (iPhone 4 and lower) or speak what your looking for (iPhone 4S ONLY) In for spotlight to work you have to go to spotlight search in the settings app, go to general and scroll to spotlight and checkmark or uncheck mark what you what it to search for. I hope this was found helpfull.
-H

What is the power of the Spotlight Search?

In Settings I have everything selected for it to search but it cannot find text within apps. For instance I have Word and Excell and text files in Quickoffice but it cannot search any of those. Is there an alternate search engine app to download?
Thank you for any insight!

That is correct. The Spotlight search does not search within apps. It searches for:
Spotlight searches the following:
Contacts—All content
Apps—Titles
Music—Names of songs, artists, and albums, and the titles of podcasts and videos
Podcasts—Titles
Videos—Titles
Audiobooks—Titles
Notes—Text of notes
Calendar (Events)—Event titles, invitees, locations, and notes
Mail—To, From, and Subject fields of all accounts (the text of messages isn’t searched)
Reminders—Titles
Messages—Names and text of messages
Search the web or Wikipedia from Spotlight: Scroll to the bottom of the search results, then tap Search Web or Search Wikipedia.
Open an app from Search: Enter all or part of the app name, then tap the app.
Choose which items are searched, and the order they’re searched: Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search.

So what all does IOS 7 spotlight search look in?

I was hoping it would search through apps, such as Evernotes. I am not finding that to be the case. Bummer!
Am I missing something?
Thanx!
Al
<Email Edited by Host>

You can get it to search for whatever you want. Go to Settings>General>Spotlight Search and simply tick/untick the items you'd like to seach for.
Hope that helps,
Ian

Why is my spotlight search slow/unresponsive in IOS 7... specifically when I start the search with the letters "n" or "c".

I have an iPhone 5 that must be just over a year old now. I don't remember exactly when this problem started, but I think it was right after updating to IOS 7. The problem is that with certain searches, such as "chrome" or "calender", the spotlight search will basically do nothing. It is somewhat random. Sometimes it will work imidiatly as I am typing it like it usually did. But other times, I will write out the whole word, press search, and still nothing will come up.
As I was just testing it now, I came up with an interesting discovery. I tested every letter of the alphabet and while 24 of them immidiatly worked fine like usual, it was actually only searches that started with "n" or "c" that did not work. Perhaps the reason I noticed this so much is because some of the apps I use all the time are Chrome, Calender, Notes, Contacts, Calculator, Clock, Camera (wow- just realized how many apps started with "c"!).
While in spotlight, if I type in C or N and then delete it and try to type another letter that would work normally, it does not work. So if I type in N and then delete it and type in A, A will not come up with results like it would if I just started with A. But if I close and reopend spotlight search and then type in A, it works fine.
When spotlight search is unresponsive if I wait for about a min sometimes results will actually come up, other times it will sort of crash (it will just randomly close before any results came up).
I could go on and on with the little details concerning this problem but I do not know what info would/would not be useful to you guys. I have tried restoring my phone from a backup and nothing changed. I am updated to the most recent version. My phone has never been jailbroken and otherwise is in perfect shape.
Thanks for reading,
Matt

I've seen this happen before, and generally turning off Documents and Data in Settings > iCloud will fix it.
If that doesn't work, try the following.
1. Restart the phone and check it out.
2. Reset the phone (hold the home button and the lock button until you see an Apple Logo and then let them go).
3. Go into Settings > General > Reset > Reset all Settings and test it out again
4. If none of the above work, try creating either an iTunes backup or an iCloud backup and restore the device as new using iTunes. Here's an article to help with that: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4137

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

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.

10.5.5 Client Getting No Results with Spotlight Search

Hi -
My company is slow to change. We are just now getting some Leopard workstations in our enterprise. The thing my users noticed right away was that under 10.5.5, they are unable to get any results from Spotlight searches on our Tiger Xserves over AFP. The Tiger workstation users can get search results from share points but not Leopard ones.
The Xserves all have 10.4.9 Server installed. The XServes and workstations are all bound to AD with SSO turned on. I limited the servers 10.4.9 Server because with 10.4.11 Server I get AD issues. 10.4.9 is stable for us.
I am forced to use Leopard as the new MacPros demand it
My question - What should I do so the Leopard workstations (10.5.5) can get real Spotlight results from my share points?
I have looked at the other Apple Support Boards and I don't get understand what they are talking about.
Thanks in advance.

I am an IT manager in a similar situation. However, I have shelled out the thousands to upgrade everything to the latest OS with my xserve running 10.5.5, and users running 10.5.5 or 10.5.6. Spotlight is totally useless. I have talked to tech "supportless" several times - no help. I have installed and reinstalled 10.5 on the server, reformatted drives, copied and deleted hundreds of gigs of data, done all kinds of terminal commands that were supposed to fix it, but it still just doesn't work. I wish Apple would stop coming out with new stuff for a while and fix this basic computer function. For now I use "Better Search". Better Search is Freeware from http://www.fornextsoft.com. Its ok - at least it finds stuff, but it is still not 100% accurate sometimes.

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?'

Problems with Spotlight searching of shared volumes

According to: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#spotlight, I should be able to "...search any connected Mac with Personal File Sharing enabled or a file server that’s sharing its files."
It doesn't specify what "file server", so I presume it means Spotlight should be able to search any mounted shared volume (assuming, of course, that indexing has been enabled).
I have a NAS device that I want to be able to search with Spotlight. According to mdutil, the volume is enabled for indexing, but I don't see any results when I search under "Shared" in Finder via Cmd+F. (I checked, and there's no .Spotlight folders on the volume.)
From what I recall, under Tiger you could manually specify a network volume to index, but if you dismounted the volume, you'd have to re-enable indexing on next mount. This worked for other file systems (such as Fat32 & NTFS), as well as for HFS+ drives.
According to mdutil in Leopard, the volume is still enabled for indexing even across dismounts. The NAS drive is not HFS+ formatted, but uses XFS.
I've tried deleting the index, to no avail.
Has anyone successfully used Spotlight to search mounted volumes on volumes not shared via another Mac?
Am I missing something?

You have not missed anything.... Leopard promises but does NOT deliver.
I use an AFP server with Bonjour enabled. And NO NO NO Spotlight search is possible on this network volume...
This is outrageous and FALSE information....
Oh and - that Leopard is Sporting 300 new features is false info too.... Not even the "What is New in Leopard" says anything about 300 features.. But it sounds great doesn't it....

Hi, we just bought a Macbook air and we can't find the 'reminders' app in the applications or through the spotlight search. Is there a link to download the app? I can't find it online or through the app store. Please help!

Hi, we just bought a Macbook air and we can't find the 'reminders' app in the applications or through the spotlight search. Is there a link to download the app? I can't find it online or through the app store. Please help!

Reminders is automatically installed with 10.8 or above. A new Mac should have 10.9; it's possible that, with a third-party vendor, you have an earlier OS. Check under the Apple menu in the top left and click About This Mac. That will tell you what version of OS X you have.
Matt

What is spotlight search

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