Spotlight is Apple’s system-wide search feature, and it relies on a regularly updated search index of the data stored on your device. This is a local, private index that stays on your Mac and isn’t shared with Apple or your other devices. Spotlight uses this index to help you find files, folders, and apps, including a wide range of content such as documents, email, text messages, contacts, photos, music, podcasts, notes, system settings, and much more. Siri can also use content from the index when responding to your requests.
Spotlight indexes your Mac so that you can search its contents. Indexing happens when you first set up your Mac, after you install a software update or upgrade, and as data changes on your device. For example, the index updates when you install new apps that allow their content to be indexed, or you receive new email or text messages.
Depending on the amount of data on your Mac, Spotlight indexing can take hours or even days. Incremental updates after that are much faster. Indexing completes more quickly when:
• Your Mac is not in use
• Your Mac is connected to power
• Your Mac is connected to the internet via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, in case email or other data needs to be downloaded for indexing
While indexing is in progress on a Mac, you may see one an indexing progress indicator at the top of the Spotlight or Siri window that opens when you press Command–Space bar or a notification from Mail that indexing is incomplete.
If Spotlight gives unexpected search results isn’t finding a certain type of content, check Spotlight settings to find out whether that type of content is turned on for Spotlight searches. From the Apple menu , choose System Settings, then click Spotlight (or Siri & Spotlight) in the sidebar and review the settings.
Rebuilding the Spotlight index can help resolve stubborn search issues, simply launch Cocktail, go to the Spotlight tab, choose disk, make sure that indexing on this disk is enabled, click Erase and macOS will generate a new index from scratch.
Learn how to transfer photos, documents, audio, video, and other files between your Mac and a Windows computer using a Bluetooth connection.
Send files from Mac to Windows PC
• Open Settings on your Windows PC (you can launch it directly by pressing the Windows + I keys)
• Select Bluetooth & devices and make sure Bluetooth is activated
• Open System Settings on your Mac and select Bluetooth
• Scroll down to the Nearby Devices section, and you should see your Windows PC here, click the Connect button next to your PC name
• You should now get an alert on your Windows computer, click it
• Make sure the number on your PC screen matches the number on your Mac screen, then hit Yes or Allow to finish pairing
• Scroll down in your Windows PC Bluetooth settings and click Send or receive files via Bluetooth
• Click Receive files
• Open the built-in Bluetooth File Exchange app on your Mac, it's located in Applications > Utilities folder
• Select the files you want to send to your PC from the Finder interface and hit the Send button
• Choose your Windows PC from the list of devices and click Send
• Your Windows PC will start receiving the file, and after the transfer finishes, it will show a “Save the received file” window
• Click Finish to save the file in the location shown, or click Browse to select another location and save it there
Send files from Windows PC to Mac
• Launch Mac’s System Settings, click Bluetooth, and make sure it’s on
• Head to General > Sharing and ensure Bluetooth Sharing is enabled
• Open Settings on your Windows PC and select Bluetooth & devices
• Make sure Bluetooth is on, and click Add device (plus button) at the top, followed by Bluetooth
• Select your Mac, and you will get an alert on your Apple computer; make sure the numbers on your Mac and PC screens match and hit the Connect button in both places
• With the computers paired, click your Mac’s name at the top of the Bluetooth settings on your PC
• Scroll down and click Send or receive files via Bluetooth
• Click Send files
• Click your Mac on the “Select where to send your files” screen and hit Next
• Click Browse, select what you want to send from File Explorer, and then click Open, then click Next
• Hit Accept on your Mac to receive the incoming Bluetooth file transfer request
• Your PC will start sending the files to your Mac; once the transfer is successful, you’ll find these files in your Mac’s Downloads folder
Learn how to stop a Mac from automatically opening the apps, windows, and tabs from your last session after restarting, powering on or logging into your macOS user account.
If you don’t like seeing apps from previous session open automatically every time you power on or restart your Mac, here are some tips to prevent this from happening.
Untick the “Reopen windows when logging back in” box
After choosing the Restart, Shut Down, or Log Out option in the Apple menu, your Mac displays a confirmation dialog with Cancel and Restart buttons and a small tick box labeled “Reopen windows when logging back in.” Ticking this box tells macOS to automatically launch all apps that remained open when you last shut down your Mac or switched to another user. To stop this from happening, untick this box.
Hold the Shift key while opening the app
If you have multiple documents open in an app like Pages, then quit and re-open the app, it will restore documents from the previous session. This is a very convenient feature until it becomes annoying. Thankfully, you can simply hold the Shift key when opening an app to prevent it from re-opening any documents or windows from the previous session. You can also stop this behavior permanently by following the steps below:
• Open System Settings and click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar
• Turn on “Close windows when quitting an application” on the right side
Stop Safari from reopening windows and tabs from the previous session
Safari automatically reopen windows and tabs from your previous session, so you can pick up right where you left off. You may want to turn off this feature to always start with a clean slate:
• Be sure “Close windows when quitting an application” is turned on in System Settings > Desktop & Dock
• Open the Safari browser and click Safari > Settings from the top menu bar
• Select the General tab, click the menu next to “Safari opens with,” and select an option other than “All windows from last session” or “All non-private windows from last session”
Quit all apps before restart or shutdown
As an alternative, close all open apps before shutting down your Mac so there’s nothing to reopen from the previous session following a restart.
The next time you end up in an Open or Save dialog window, try out a few of these helpful keyboard shortcuts to make navigating around the dialog and filesystem much faster.
Command+D
Selects Desktop as the destination.
Command+Shift+H
Sets the Home directory as the destination.
Command+Shift+A
Sets Applications directory as the destination.
Command+Shift+.
Toggle invisible items.
Command+Shift+G
Bring up Go To Folder window.
Command+R
Open the selected item in the Finder.
Command+F
Move the cursor to the Find field.
Command+.
Close the Open/Save dialog window.
Spacebar
View the selected item in Quick Look.
Tab
Tab key auto-completes paths and file names from the aforementioned Go To Folder window.
Sometimes, an external drive, disk image, or other mounted volume refuses to leave macOS of its own free will.
When using macOS, you certainly know if you’ve opened a Pages file or are editing an email. But, below the surface are files that macOS uses that you don’t see all the activity required for background processes, Time Machine backups, Spotlight indexing, and other system needs. When you want to eject a mounted volume, like a volume on an external SSD or hard drive, you can run afoul of macOS’s hidden needs.
You can try to eject a volume normally in these ways:
• Select it in the Finder and press Command-E
• Select it in the Finder and choose File > Eject
• Control-click/right-click the volume in the Finder and choose Eject
If you’re lucky, when you try to eject a volume, you will see a message with specific details, such as: The disk "My Photos" couldn't be ejected because "Adobe Photoshop 2024" is using it. Quitting Adobe Photoshop will let you eject “My Photos”, but if there’s something happening at a system level, you will see a message worded like this: The disk "My Photos" wasn’t ejected because one or more programs may be using it. You can try to eject the disk again or click Force Eject to eject it immediately. Cancel and Force Eject buttons are part of the dialog, and a progress spinner appears next to the phrase “Trying to eject.”. That does not help resolve the situation. Here’s what you can do to narrow down the problem:
Close Finder windows. As odd as it seems, sometimes merely having a window open in the Finder that shows the contents of the volume or a folder on it may make the Finder believe that a “program” is using that mounted item. Close the Finder window and try again.
Remove the volume from Spotlight. I’ve found that Spotlight can sometimes seize hold of a volume and mark it as unejectable even when indexing isn’t actively in process on that volume. You can check if that’s the problem by going to Apple menu > System Settings... > Siri & Spotlight, scrolling down to the bottom of the view, and clicking Spotlight Privacy. Drag the volume into the window (or click + and navigate to it, then add it), and click Done. This immediately removes the volume from indexing. Try to eject now. If it works, that was the problem. However, if you want to search items on that volume, you will need to remove it from Spotlight Privacy later.
Check if Time Machine is backing up. If Time Machine is actively backing up the volume, you may be unable to eject it. Check the status of Time Machine either through its system menu or by going to Apple menu > System Settings... > General > Time Machine. If it’s underway, you can choose Skip This Backup from the Time Machine system menu or click the “x” box next to the active session in the System Settings view and wait for Time Machine to wind down. You can exclude the volume from Time Machine by using the settings view: click Options, click the + (plus) sign at the bottom of Exclude from Backups, and add the volume while mounted. Click Done.
Shut down. For a physically connected external volume, choose Apple menu > Shut Down. When your Mac is completely shut down, unplug the SSD or HDD. Press the power button on your Mac to start up. For a “logically” mounted volume, such as a disk image or networked volume, choose Apple menu > Restart. On restart, the volume should be unmounted by default. If not, immediately select it and use an eject option listed above, which should now work.
