8

I noticed recently (could be caused by upgrade to 10.10.4) that Spotlight is changing order of the search results dynamically as you type and OS X installed apps have no more the highest priority (I am almost sure this was the case before).

For example searching for the Caffeine app:

  1. Open Spotlight
  2. Type "caf"

The top hit starts off with the app I'm looking for (yay!)

enter image description here

  1. Press "f" so the search term is now "caff"

enter image description here

Wikipedia entry is now the first result and hitting enter opens the Safari.app instead of the Caffeine.app :(

I mostly used Spotlight for quick app opening, which is now much slower because I always have to double-check that I am actually opening the app instead of Safari.

Is it somehow possible to disable this behavior or prioritize installed apps over Internet search results?

Improve this question

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
9

System Preferences lets you choose what is displayed, but (since 10.9?) it no longer lets you select the order/priority of results. It would be nice to have that functionality back. I find that I'm constantly opening/launching something I didn't mean to because of the dynamic ordering of results in 10.11.

Improve this answer
1
  • there are some posts that claim that unchecking stuff does not work. It did work for me just now. May 2023. MacOs 12....
    – Tjunkie
    May 26 at 21:24
3

I have noticed that as I use Spotlight, it begins to "learn" my search preferences.

For example: search caf, then select Caffeine. Repeat.

After a few times, Caffeine should become the dominant result.

Additionally, you can turn on or off what Spotlight returns in System Preferences.

  • Go to  > System Preferences
  • Select Spotlight
  • In the Search Results tab, deselect items you don't wish to see in results.

Spotlight Preferences

Improve this answer
2
0

Try adding a Tag to the item to see if that helps.

  1. focus on the item and cmd+I to Get Info.
  2. In the "Add Tags" field, add something like caff.

In my experience, the Tags seem to bump up the item in Spotlight.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    For my purpose, it seems we can't add comments or tags to System Preferences app in Finder, unfortunately.
    – 2540625
    Dec 7, 2018 at 23:40
  • this. no i do not want search priorities to prefer a specific document written 4 years ago and unmodified and unaccessed since over system preferences windows..
    – kando
    Apr 10, 2020 at 18:12
-1

While we can't reorganize these easily you can at least filter the search. You can use any of these filters:

kind:application
kind:applications
kind:app
kind:contact
kind:contacts
kind:folder
kind:folders
kind:image
kind:images
kind:movie
kind:movies
kind:music
kind:audio
kind:jpeg
kind:pict
kind:text
kind:rtf
kind:osxdaily
kind:pdf
kind:pdfs
kind:system preferences
kind:preferences
kind:bookmark
kind:bookmarks
kind:font
kind:fonts
kind:presentations
kind:presentation
kind:email
kind:emails
kind:mail message kind:mail messages
kind:event
kind:events
kind:reminder
kind:reminders

And even

kind:application
kind:pdf
kind:jpeg
kind:word
kind:folder
kind:image
kind:audio
date:today
date:yesterday
date:>1/1/2016

Improve this answer
1
  • This is nice information, but doesn't answer the question, and is less convenient in most cases than just using the arrow key to select the desired result.
    – Andrew Theken
    Jan 28, 2022 at 13:35

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .