Apple has enhanced Spotlight search in macOS in recent years, with the addition of Spotlight Suggestions allowing it to tap into a variety of online data sources like weather and sports. Nevertheless, helping you find apps, documents and other files stored on your Mac is still what Spotlight does best.
That’s not to say its core function is infallible, however. If Spotlight can’t find files that you know exist on your Mac, or if it stops prioritizing results based on your earlier searches, then it’s probably a sign that your system’s search index is damaged somehow.
If you’re experiencing odd behavior when using Spotlight, you should try rebuilding its search database index. There are Terminal commands that will do the job, but you can achieve the same result via the regular macOS user interface in just a few quick steps. Here’s how.
Read more at MacRumors.com