How to Force Spotlight to Reindex Folder & Volumes. (Simple way)

The Spotlight search helps to find any folder or tools in a quick manner. But, if you face problems with the Mac OS Spotlight search result you need to reindex folders or volumes for Spotlight search. Don't worry about it. In this article, I will show you how to force Spotlight to reindex folders or volumes. Ok, without further talk just jump in it.

Reindex Folder and volume to Spotlight search

  1. First, go to Apple Menu.
  2. And select the System Preferences.
  3. Now tap on the Spotlight.
  4. Now select the Privacy tab. Re-index Spotlight on Mac
  5. Drag and enter the volume (hard drive) or folder to the list.
  6. Click OK when it prompted for confirmation.
  7. Remove the volume or folder you added to the list by selecting it and then clicking the (-) minus button.
  8. Finally Close Spotlight preferences.
  9. Now go back to the folder or Volume and check the Spotlight search is appears or not.

If the above method does not work for you then follow the below step to get benefited.

Reindex Spotlight using Terminal command

This command will reindex every mounted volume on Mac OS X Yosemite and mavericks like disk images, external drive, and internal hard drives.

  1. Open Terminal app from Applications
  2. Now type or paste the following command on the terminal.
  3. Type ” sudo mdutil -E ” and tap on the Enter button.
  4. If you want a specific folder or volume then follow this command..
  5. That is  sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/NameOfExternalVolume/ “
  6. It will require you to enter the administrator password. When you typing a password, you can’t see it.
  7. Then hit Return.
  8. You will get “indexing enabled”.
  9. Then type in exit. Press return. This will re-index search results in Spotlight.

I hope this article will help to know how to reindex Spotlight search in volume and folder. If you know any other way or suggestions let me know through the comment section below. And keep support us.

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3 thoughts on “How to Force Spotlight to Reindex Folder & Volumes. (Simple way)”

  1. the command prompt code disables search, not enables.
    2016-05-07 15:40:35.262 mdutil[685:39450] mdutil disabling Spotlight: / -> kMDConfigSearchLevelOff
    Indexing and searching disabled.

  2. Those messages are indicating that spotlight is already disabled on those volumes, it is not disabling them with that command.
    To enable it from the commandline, try this: sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/NameOfExternalVolume/

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