Very slow spotlight search

[T Coma]

I've never been much of a spotlight search user, but I've seen it used a lot recently in various how-to videos etc, and my interest has been piqued. I'm running El Capitan on a 1TB SSD equipped 2011 27" i5 iMac, with 12 GB RAM. Rather than use the traditional way of going to the dock to open apps or Finder to search files, I've been trying to CMD-space as much as I can just to get into the habit.

Regardless of what I'm looking to do, I end up waiting considerably longer than clicking through the dock, app folder, or document folder to get where I need to go. I usually end up waiting 10 seconds (rough estimate) or more in some cases to get a list of options in the spotlight.

It seems the examples I watch via online video show instantaneous listings of options pop up through the spotlight, so I have to wonder if there is some indexing issue happening on my mac. If so, does anyone know a way to improve it?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Yes, there may be an indexing issue. You may want to re-index. Initiating the re-indexing takes just a few clicks, though the time needed to complete the process may require many hours. During that time, system performance may be affected. https://support.apple.com/HT201716

Spotlight searches on my Macs run considerably faster than 10 seconds - 1-3 seconds in most cases. I wouldn't use it for every app or document - the direct path may still be faster. But if the path is somewhat indirect, it's very efficient.

 

[T Coma]

Yes, there may be an indexing issue. You may want to re-index. Initiating the re-indexing takes just a few clicks, though the time needed to complete the process may require many hours. During that time, system performance may be affected. https://support.apple.com/HT201716

Spotlight searches on my Macs run considerably faster than 10 seconds - 1-3 seconds in most cases. I wouldn't use it for every app or document - the direct path may still be faster. But if the path is somewhat indirect, it's very efficient.

That seems to have done the trick. Spotlight is now populating the list before I'm done typing whatever I'm looking for, in about 15 different categories of hits in some cases. Thanks for the advice.