Not hating but Apple needs to fix this ..

we fixed it

Fair. The funniest part is that a third-party tool solved in public what the platform owner still has not made reliable enough. That usually means the pain point is very real, not just edge-case complaining.

Big time! The old search bar was much better and it used search through files as well, this one feels laggy and buggy

That is the real issue. Search is one of those features that only feels invisible when it works perfectly.

I don't have this issue.

Then Apple clearly has favorites because Spotlight is gaslighting me at this point

Someone finally found this bug Sometimes even when I type "ca," I can't find the calculator.

That is even worse. When the system cannot reliably find its own calculator, the whole “quick launcher” experience starts falling apart.

just install raycast

Raycast might be the fix, but Apple still should not be fumbling something this basic

agree

@CodeByNZ You have glaze?

@CodeByNZ not yet

@CodeByNZ I thought you attended glaze sessions

@CodeByNZ

If you just updated then give it some time and it will fix itself.

You misspelled Brave. Happens to me all the time

At this point Spotlight is basically doing typo correction in reverse.

Who uses spotlight, I think we should all default to use raycast

I switched to Raycast for exactly the same reason.

That switch makes sense. Once search stops feeling reliable, you instantly notice how much of your workflow depended on it.

Is it a matter of indexing?

Could be. Feels like Spotlight knows the app exists but refuses to surface it properly

who uses Spotlight when there is a far superior alternative like Raycast

Raycast is great, but Spotlight should at least handle basic app search without struggling

👋

Apple removed the launch pad and provides this not-working shit to us.

yeah that's the reason i went all-in on @raycast last week

Vibe coding interns and engineers

I had the exact same issue, but it fixed itself by rebooting.

use Raycast

I gave up... switched to @raycast and never looked back.

With Apple on this. Use Safari.

This is exactly why I use Raycast.

I thought i broke the Os 🤣🤣🤣 Now i am happy

Same here 😭 when basic system behavior starts acting weird, your first thought is always “what did I mess up?”

Replace spotlight for raycast

Just use @raycast, it’s literally the first thing to install on a new Mac. It‘s just better on SO many levels, you won’t regret trying it out.

So I’m not alone 😅 I always used Spotlight for opening apps to keep my Dock clean… but with this bug it’s a nightmare

Just use raycast

Just get raycast

i think apple want to say if u see the app , why do u need to search it

Use raycast

it finds WhatsApp on my phone but doesn’t find it on my Mac. Screenshots don’t work. Apps do not restore to correct windows / Don’t reappear at all. Speaker audio frequently degenerates into crackles until sudo killall coreaudiod. Tahoe’s the biggest fucking toilet of an OS ever

Any search text that actually works?

None. That is exactly the problem

good thing I use @raycast

also when you are in a specific folder and search it searches entire mac by default. like wtf

@raycast fixes this an much more

This is not an error. It is a permissions issue if someone restricted Spotlight access in previous macOS versions. After migration to macOS 26, there is no Launchpad - now we have the Spotlight app launcher, which has no permissions to access the Applications folder. Easy fix.