iOS 14 Spotlight Search not showing apps and contacts

[harkon]

Hi all,

since upgrading to iOS 14 yesterday my Spotlight search seems to be broken. It’s not showing apps or contacts anymore. Restart didn’t solve the issue. Is there someone else experiencing this or has someone found a solution perhaps?

 

[harkon]

No one with the same problem? I discovered that Spotlight also doesn’t search in E-Mails and Music anymore...

 

[Grady Greer]

Hello,

I can't even begin to tell you how absolutely FURIOUS I am about Apple making this STUPID nonsensical change; I cant even begin to imagine how removing this functionality is anything but detrimental to any user's experience, so how they justified making this change somehow is just beyond.

This ridiculous bullsh*t has been in every damn beta version since beta 1! When I got ios14 beta 1, I was like WOW thats a huge glitch, surely it will be fixed in beta 2..... and then maybe beta 3, 4, .... 5?? 6....? Ugh. It made it all the way through to the final version! WHAT? I have 1,500 apps on my phone so the only way for me to find what I need is via Spotlight search (or WAS the only way ugh). I now have to resort to looking every single damn app up in the App Store and launching that way because they've just screwed it all up so badly. I had been waiting for MONTHS since beta 1 came out +hoping and waiting for the day that they would fix this.

Well, after realizing that somehow it made it into the worldwide release version, the next day (yesterday) I called Apple and threw a huge fit and demanded to know if this was a glitch with my device or if it was truly DESIGNED (this stupidly) and done on purposes for whatever reason?!?

After 2, nearly 3, hours on the phone with Apple yesterday about just about this and this only, IT IS 100% FOR SURE DESIGNED TO NO LONGER SEARCH AMONG YOUR APPS, MUSIC, CONTACTS and all kinds of other things for reasons that make me think whoever came up with this idea should be shot.

I'm sorry you are dealing with this also; believe me when I tell you that I FEEEEELLL YOUR PAIN!!

 

[DoctorApple]

Yes, it’s gone. I have 2000 apps on my phone, I now have to use Siri to open apps.

On the other hand, I think Apple is trying to change our behavior by guiding us to use the new App Library to surface the apps that we want to use.

Edit: Looks like it's a bug. It works on my friend's phone.

 

[DoctorApple]

duplicate

 

[StevenB14]

Are you meaning that you can’t pull down and search for an app you want to launch?

That functionality still exists for me.

 

[golfnut1982]

Try changing the default language and the country to say Ireland. Then change back to wherever you are. I read this somewhere and it fixes the broken search. I has for me anyway.

 

[harkon]

Changing the language didn’t work for me. I can’t believe this behaviour is by design as the search is still working on my wife’s iPhone.

 

[golfnut1982]

Changing the language didn’t work for me. I can’t believe this behaviour is by design as the search is still working on my wife’s iPhone.

Did you change the region too?

 

[jbindy1]

Same here

Hi all,

since upgrading to iOS 14 yesterday my Spotlight search seems to be broken. It’s not showing apps or contacts anymore. Restart didn’t solve the issue. Is there someone else experiencing this or has someone found a solution perhaps?

 

[town3r]

I was having the same issue with a few apps not showing up in the spotlight search results.

found the following under Settings > Siri & Search > app that for some reason some apps have these settings disabled.

 

[harkon]

Did you change the region too?

Yes. Tried al sorts of changes in the settings...

 

[harkon]

I was having the same issue with a few apps not showing up in the spotlight search results.

found the following under Settings > Siri & Search > app that for some reason some apps have these settings disabled.

View attachment 955828

I checked most of my apps. It’s not showing any at all. And it’s also not showing contacts or songs in search.

 

[Tony Lewis]

After 2, nearly 3, hours on the phone with Apple yesterday about just about this and this only, IT IS 100% FOR SURE DESIGNED TO NO LONGER SEARCH AMONG YOUR APPS, MUSIC, CONTACTS and all kinds of other things for reasons that make me think whoever came up with this idea should be shot.

I promise you that the Apple reps you spoke with were mistaken. This is a core functionality of spotlight search that will not be removed. It’s simply a bug that will be fixed soon.

 

[golfnut1982]

I checked most of my apps. It’s not showing any at all. And it’s also not showing contacts or songs in search.

Ok, maybe reset all settings. I tried that too once as a nuclear option. I just can't recall 100% if it worked or not, but I think it did. It's been a year or so. I also found this...Part of what you already tried...

Spotlight Search not working on iPhone? 6 Quick fixes - iGeeksBlog

Spotlight Search is one of the handiest features on our iPhones. We often rely on it to quickly search and access contacts, text, or other content across our devices. However, if you recently updated your iPhone to iOS 17.5 and the Spotlight Search hasn't worked since then, you aren't alone...

www.igeeksblog.com

 

[digitalexplr]

I’m running 14.2 b1 and Spotlight Search searches everything on iPP 11 and XR, apps, contacts, emails, notes, music, etc.

 

[erio]

I have the same issue. Spotlight can't find installed apps, texts in Messages, Notes, Reminders, etc. Everything is turned on in Siri & Search. The only thing Spotlight gives me is search the web, App Store, TV shows and movies, etc. Anything important—nothing! I've been reporting this issue in Feedback since iOS 14 beta was released. It's incredible how iOS 14 passed all those betas with Spotlight broken. This is also an accessibility issue—my friend's dad uses Spotlight constantly. I recommended my friend to keep their devices in iOS 13 until this issue is fixed!

 

[Deniska]

Same issue with spotlight immediately after upgrade to release of iOS 14 from iOS 13.7 on September 17 !!

“Reset all settings” I tried today, but it’s not help.
I also have a lot of applications.
Application , calendars and so on doesn’t search.

I hear that this issue was fomulate as a bug in first betas, but somebody write that restart fix the issue temporarily and it became minor issue because of that !! Restart of course doesn’t help. Issue is under investigation.

I also found that many people doesn’t have this spotlight issue. So this issue is not for everybody....... I think that the problem is in index, some time ago I have same problem with windows 10 search after season upgrade , but after day the search in windows 10 start to work again. But iOS do not want to recover index..
I think issue regarding people who have a lot of apps (several hundrets or more ) on the device.

Google offers not only for iOS 14 spotlight search unselect suggestion search and do on in search setup menu for every app, it is difficult to do if many apps.

also the solution can be full recover probably , but somebody allready did it and it’s not help.

reset all settings help only sometime, it can help in some seldom situation...

I think first need to wait official comments , after that if there are no comments ( there are a lot of changes about apps library and because of that it can be a fix for this issue , we can try full recover device....

 

[VoltusV]

I have the same issue, both on my iPad Pro 2018 and my iPhone 11 Pro, in which I am unable to use Search to find and launch apps.

I’ve tried iPad OS 14 since it’s beta version, and I thought it was a beta issue. I’ve reported it using Feedback, but no responses whatsoever. I really hope the final public version of the iOs 14 & iPadOS 14 would resolve this issue, but sadly, it is not. 😔

I’ve tried restarting, both cold & hot restart, also changing languages/regions, to no avail.

Chatted with an Apple representative, but no solution offered.

The only thing I haven’t tried is to hard reset (all conten & settings), and set up the iPad as a new iPad. Just afraid that it would turn out for nothing.

Disappointed with Apple.

 

[harkon]

I think I found a solution. Remembering that apple always had problems if you had more than 1000 apps installed I started cleaning up... and afterwards after dropping down to 999 spotlight started working immediately...

 

[harkon]

Don’t ask why I had more than 1000 apps installed. It was time to clean up anyways. But nevertheless it works. I also did the same on my iPad and the search also works normal now.

 

[Tony Lewis]

Ok, maybe reset all settings. I tried that too once as a nuclear option. I just can't recall 100% if it worked or not, but I think it did. It's been a year or so.

this is in regard to IOS14 that was released

Don’t ask why I had more than 1000 apps installed. It was time to clean up anyways. But nevertheless it works. I also did the same on my iPad and the search also works normal now.

don’t be ashamed I have 2500+ I might have an app problem. I reduced my app count to 953 and still have the issue

 

[harkon]

this is in regard to IOS14 that was released

don’t be ashamed I have 2500+ I might have an app problem. I reduced my app count to 953 and still have the issue

Hmm. Then perhaps I accidentally deleted throne app that corrupted the search index...

 

[poutylips]

Toggle on ‘Suggest App’ and ‘Show App in Search’ to unveil the 2 new settings.

 

[Deniska]

Does developers see this forum ?
What is throne app?

Hmm. Then perhaps I accidentally deleted throne app that corrupted the search index...