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In this article we will explain how to disable Spotlight on Mac and iPhone. Some users may find this useful, but for others it’s either annoying, pointless, or a possible breach of privacy, since anyone who picks up your iPhone can see and search through your apps, calendar, and other personal information. Your Spotlight searches are sent to Apple over the Internet by Mac OS X and iOS from Apple.
You then see suggestions from Bing for websites, places, and media content. You can turn this off and do only local searches when you use Spotlight on a Mac or an iOS device. If Location Services are turned on on your Mac or iOS device, Apple will also know where you are when you use Spotlight to search. You can find things on your Mac faster with Spotlight.
This tool can show you how to get to the things you need on your Mac as quickly as possible. If you noticed that Spotlight was taking up too much CPU, you could turn it off. The latest version of macOS makes it harder to do, but it’s still possible. If you’ve tried all of these solutions and you’re still having the same problem in your iPhone, you should go to their official Apple support website for more information.
How to disable Spotlight on Mac
You don’t have to turn off Spotlight Search to use something better. You can still keep it around and use it from the menu bar if you need to. But to get the most out of one of these other options, you’ll need to turn off the Spotlight Search keyboard shortcut (Command + Space) by doing the following:
- On your Mac, click the Apple icon in the top menu bar and choose the “System Preferences” option. (You can also hit Command + Space to open up a Spotlight Search and type “Settings” for old time’s sake.)
- Click the “Spotlight” icon (which looks like a blue circle with a magnifying glass), and then click the “Keyboard Shortcuts” button in the bottom-left corner.
- Make sure “Spotlight” is highlighted in the left-hand column, then uncheck the “Show Spotlight Search” option in the right-hand column.
- After doing so, when you use the Command + Space keyboard shortcut, nothing will happen.
How to disable Spotlight on iphone
Spotlight Search is already on when you get an iPhone. To get to it, you can swipe down on your Home Screen. With iOS 16, you can also swipe left on the Home Screen to go to the Today view and use Spotlight Search.
For some reason, Apple doesn’t allow you to disable Spotlight Search altogether. But you can get rid of Siri’s ideas from the Search. This is how:
- Open iPhone Settings.
- Scroll down until you see Siri & Search.
- Under BEFORE SEARCHING, toggle Show Suggestions on or off.
- Under CONTENT FROM APPLE, toggle Show in Spotlight on or off.
FAQ
How do I stop Spotlight service?
Click on Administrative Tools | Services. Double-click the Spotlight Diagnostic Server name in the list of services. To start the Spotlight Diagnostic Server, click the Start button. To stop the service, click Stop.
How do I delete Spotlight index on Mac?
Choose Apple menu > System Settings. Click Siri & Spotlight in the sidebar, then move down and click Spotlight Privacy on the right. Choose the disc or folder you just added from the same list of places. Then click the remove button (–) to remove it from the list.
Where is Spotlight feature on iPhone?
Swipe right from the Home screen to get to Spotlight Search (at the top). If the option isn’t there, swipe down from the middle of the Home screen. In the Search field, type the text you want to look for. As you type, a list of possible matches may show up, from which you can choose at any time.
Can you disable Spotlight Mac?
If you don’t want to use Spotlight or want to use a different search app instead, you can turn off the key combination in macOS settings: Open System Settings ➙ Keyboard. Go to the Shortcuts page… Go to the Spotlight page.