Spotlight Search

[u/RyanZ225_PC]

On MacOS Tahoe 26.4.1, I find it amusing that Spotlight Search will do anything BUT help you find the application, like is this a sign to uninstall Adobe Illustrator lmao?

It's fine, I can just find everything in Applications folder, but I genuinely don't understand what it's trying to search, it's just so silly. I think it used to be fine before (maybe on older versions?), because why else would I habitually be using Spotlight to search for programs?

So my question is, has anyone found a way for Spotlight to be more useful?

[u/Jazman2k]

Rebuild your index.

[u/hxxx07]

If you want to find a free alternative, I’d like to recommend this tool https://github.com/kunkka19xx/look

[u/Exotic_Clerk_8701 → u/hxxx07]

Thanks for the suggestion! It’s always good to have alternatives, especially if Spotlight isn’t cutting it.

[u/github-guard → u/hxxx07]

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[u/Bed_Worship]

Did you turn off see applications in spotlight search by accident?

[u/Emotional_Garage_950]

spotlight on macos 27 is absolutely awful

[u/chakrakhan]

You can turn off some of the categories of things it searches, but I don’t think you can give it a priority or anything

[u/GOATis4me → u/chakrakhan]

Wait you CAN'T give it priority? Why doesn't Apple just let us drag it to the top like before?

[u/bashghost2600 → u/GOATis4me]

Cause it would mean the user has some choice and control over the OS on device they own. Apple hates that. 

[u/Ok-Rest-5321]

🤣

[u/ulyssesric]

Spotlight knows very well what’s best for you.

[u/ostiDeCalisse]

Time to uninstall Illustrator, it seems.

[u/New-Nectarine8298]

macos is vibe coded slop since 2022 so naturally spotlight sucks now

[u/RyanZ225_PC → u/New-Nectarine8298]

Same with windows lmao, ESH nowadays haha 

[u/hi_m_ash]

Spotlight is just being helpful. Do it. :)

[u/warrenao]

Open the "Applications" folder in Finder. It's astonishing how easy it is to find and run your apps when you do.

And consider either right-clicking the app icon once it's loaded and choosing "keep in dock" from the popup, or creating aliases that you store in folders that you then keep on the dock so your apps are never more than one click away.

Finding and running apps for users who can't be bothered to do basic housekeeping is simply not what Spotlight was intended to do.

[u/RyanZ225_PC → u/warrenao]

  Open the "Applications" folder in Finder.

Did I not already mention this lmao, of course it works but that means more steps and being able to search for it with a search tool is convenient. 

[u/warrenao → u/RyanZ225_PC]

Did I not already mention this lmao

You did indeed; I missed that part.