Apple Explains Why Spotlight Indexing Can Take Days After an Update

[MacRumors]

For anyone who's experienced the lengthy post-update indexing process when trialing the beta version of iOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, iPadOS 27, or visionOS 27: Apple has published a Spotlight support document that explains what's going on.

Apple says indexing can take hours or even days depending on how much data you have stored. It completes more quickly when your device is not in use, and when it is connected to power and the internet. Apple also confirms that the index is stored locally, remains private, and is not shared with Apple or any of your other devices.

Article Link: Apple Explains Why Spotlight Indexing Can Take Days After an Update

 

[brokengardener]

It doesn't explain anything of the kind. It just says "it might take hours or even days". Doesn't say why.

 

[infiniteentropy]

>faster while connected to the Internet
>stored locally

Hm

 

[podycust]

If everything is stored locally why does indexing need an internet connection?

 

[Astuces iOS]

They might secretly collect some data !

 

[smithrh]

Photos suffers from this multi-day indexing as well.

As far as I can tell, Apple is just trying so so so so hard to not impact users or CPU that they take forever to run through their indexing (again, not just Spotlight but some other apps as well).

I want it done right away. Go for it. And tell me the percentage complete, please.

 

[nikhsub1]

>faster while connected to the Internet
>stored locally

Hm

Haha I'm thinking the same thing. At any rate, it is annoying AF how long this can take.

 

[Jakol]

If that index left my computer I would special forces into Apple Camp ...

 

[svish]

Have not installed any beta. Hopefully the 26.6 update will help in reducing indexing time once I update to macOS/iOS/iPadOS 27.

 

[aj8690]

If everything is stored locally why does indexing need an internet connection?

>faster while connected to the Internet
>stored locally

Hm

It says why in the support article. So that emails can be downloaded from your email server to be indexed locally.

 

[tkermit]

They might secretly collect some data !

Are you accusing them of lying?

This is a local, private index that stays on your device and isn’t shared with Apple or your other devices.

 

[StellarVixen]

Spotlight’s job has not been just plain file indexing for several versions now. There are daemons like duetexpertd, medianalysisd, photoanalysisd, and several others dealing with machine learning, or how it’s called nowadays “AI”. And they can take a lot of time, depending on how many things are there to index.

 

[KENESS]

They might secretly collect some data !

They might use the heat of their server farms to grow tomatoes in winter !

 

[nikhsub1]

It says why in the support article. So that emails can be downloaded from your email server to be indexed locally.

Interesting - I don't use the local mail app at all but it still takes a long time.

 

[HVDynamo]

>faster while connected to the Internet
>stored locally

Hm

Yeah, that seems suspect to me too. If it is fully private and local, why is internet even mentioned. It shouldn't be dependent on the internet at all.

Edit: after going through to the final link, they explain it further:

• Your device is connected to the internet via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, in case email or other data needs to be downloaded for indexing.

 

[smithrh]

Spotlight’s job has not been just plain file indexing for several versions now. There are daemons like duetexpertd, medianalysisd, photoanalysisd, and several others dealing with machine learning, or how it’s called nowadays “AI”. And they can take a lot of time, depending on how many things are there to index.

It only takes a long time because Apple makes it take a long time. It could be much much quicker.

 

[smithrh]

Yeah, that seems suspect to me too. If it is fully private and local, why is internet even mentioned. It shouldn't be dependent on the internet at all.

From the support article:

"in case email or other data needs to be downloaded for indexing"

Not a mystery or anything suspect at all.

 

[vegetassj4]

gee...I wonder

 

[Populus]

I want it done right away. Go for it. And tell me the percentage complete, please.

Yeah. And while they’re at it, they could offer the option to perform this indexing 2.0 also on external drives. That way, if you search for a document on Spotlight and it isn’t on your main internal drive, it can tell you where exactly is on an external drive.

Actually, there are already third party apps that do this, keeping an index of all the files in your external drives… but I’d like to see it done by Apple at the operating system level.

 

[HVDynamo]

From the support article:

"in case email or other data needs to be downloaded for indexing"

Not a mystery or anything suspect at all.

Yeah, I just did the dive and edited my comment to add that too. Not as big of a deal then.

 

[Populus]

gee...I wonder

View attachment 2656007

I see you like gloves…

 

[dmx]

It would be nice if there was something in settings: “force index” - fine if it slows my phone down, drains my battery until it dies, just don’t pause until it’s done. Progress bar would be icing on the cake!

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

>faster while connected to the Internet
>stored locally

Hm

I don’t know about you, but most of the data that I have on my phone is stored in iCloud, not on the phone itself.
Photos, messages, email,most of that is stored on the Internet.
Just because the index is on device doesn’t mean that all of the source data necessarily is.

 

[vegetassj4]

I see you like gloves…

gotta garden

 

[montuori]

It only takes a long time because Apple makes it take a long time. It could be much much quicker.

The ignorance on MR knows no bounds.