Fresh install of Mojave - spotlight can't find any apps

[djneils98]

just done a reinstall of Mojave on my 2015 MBP 15 and now spotlight won't find any apps. it finds other stuff but not any apps or utilities. e.g typing 'activity' does not return activity monitor
I have apps ticked in the spotlight settings and have done the re-indexing thing.
any ideas?
thanks in advance

[Slydude]

Has the Applications folder accidentally ben added to the Privacy tab in the Spotlight preference pane? If it has that's probably the issue. Remove it and see if that fixes things. You might have to let things reindex.

[djneils98]

Has the Applications folder accidentally ben added to the Privacy tab in the Spotlight preference pane? If it has that's probably the issue. Remove it and see if that fixes things. You might have to let things reindex.

Thanks.
No the application folder was not in the exemption list when I noticed the issue. I put it in and deleted it to try to force a re-index but no change.

[pm-r]

I have apps ticked in the spotlight settings and have done the re-indexing thing.

Are you sure that Spotlight has actually finished indexing all your hard drive, including the Applications folder???


- Patrick
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[djneils98]

Are you sure that Spotlight has actually finished indexing all your hard drive, including the Applications folder???


- Patrick
======

Yes it’s finished indexing. I get no “app” results at all

[chscag]

just done a reinstall of Mojave on my 2015 MBP 15 and now spotlight won't find any apps.

Let's go back a bit first. Why did you do a reinstall of Mojave? Were you having some problems with the previous installation of Mojave?

[djneils98]

Let's go back a bit first. Why did you do a reinstall of Mojave? Were you having some problems with the previous installation of Mojave?

Had a stable Mojave instal. Went to Catalina. Realised it wasn’t for me as had compatibility issues and main feature I wanted didn’t even work with pre-2016 mbps. So reinstalled mojave from fresh. Now spotlight finds everything but installed apps. Indexing has competed.
Thanks

[chscag]

Okay. You installed Mojave fresh. I guess you didn't make a backup before you installed Catalina? That is strange that Spotlight can not find your Apps. Assuming your Application folder is installed where it should be, there is no way that Spotlight would not see the Apps in it. Check the location of your Application folder. Also, can you see the Application folder and all the Apps when you open the Finder? And are you logged on under your user name?

And by the way, you're not the first user who was caught short by installing Catalina and finding out that some Apps would no longer work or had compatibility issues. I myself am still running Mojave because I have an App that won't run from Catalina. I have instead installed Catalina to an external SSD that I have so I can keep up with it.

[Rod]

Was the feature you really wanted Sidecar? If so I had the same disappointment with my 3 year old 2015 MBP, I even started a thread about it. I was so peed off I went to the App Store a bought Duet.
Do you have an Application Folder and are the expected contents all in it?
If that’s a yes, go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Spotlight. You will see a long list of items under the Search Results tab, the top one is Applications, check that it is ticked. I’m pretty sure this is the same in Mojave as Catalina.


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