Comment by fragmede
18 days ago
and if it paid off, that would almost be acceptable! But no. After spotlight has indexed my /Applications folder, when I hit command-spacebar and type "preview.app", it takes ~4 seconds on my M4 laptop to search the sqlite database for it and return that entry.
grumble
On pre-Tahoe macOS there is the “Applications” view (accessible e.g. from the dock). Since the only thing I would use Spotlight for is searching through applications to start, I changed the Cmd+Space keybind to launch the Applications view. The search is instant.
Spotlight, aside from failing to find applications also pollutes the search results with random files it found on the filesystem, some shortcuts to search the web and whatnot. Also, at the start of me using a Mac it repeatedly got into the state of not displaying any results whatsoever. Fixing that each time required running some arcane commands in the terminal. Something that people associate with Linux, but ironically I think now Linux requires less of that than Mac.
But in Tahoe they removed the Applications view, so my solution is gone now.
All in all, with Apple destroying macOS in each release, crippling DTrace with SIP, Liquid Glass, poor performance monitoring compared to what I can see with tools like perf on Linux, or Intel VTune on Windows, Metal slowly becoming the only GPU programming option, I think I’m going to be switching back to Linux.
macOS profiling tools completely blow Linux’s perf out of the water. It’s not even close.
You are saying that like perf is Linux only profiling tool.
1 reply →
[dead]
6 replies →
I have the same issue on my M4 Macbook Pro and I had it on my previous M2 Apple Mac Mini, on several macOS versions (pre-Tahoe). I suspect it has to do with the virtual filesystem layer, as I had used OneDrive for Mac and now Proton Drive. Whatever it is, it has been broken for years on several devices and OSes and I am pretty sure Apple doesn't care about it.
On my Intel mac searching with cmd+space for a file takes under a second. Maybe there is a problem on your end?
I’ve actually had worse problems as recently as last week: Apps stopped showing up completely in spotlight.
Only a system reinstall + manually deleting all index files fixed it. Meanwhile it was eating 20-30GB of disk space. There are tons of reports of this in the apple forums.
Even then, it feels a lot slower in MacOS 26 than it did before, and you often get the rug-pull effect of your results changing a millisecond before you press the enter key. I would pay good money to go back to Snow Leopard.
I had the same problem last year, re-indexing all the files fixed it for me[1].
That being said, macOS was definitely more snappy back on Catalina, which was the first version I had so I can't vouch for Snow Leopard. Each update after Catalina felt gradually worse and from what i heard Tahoe feels like the last nail in the coffin.
I hope the UX team will deliver a more polished, expressive and minimal design next time.
[1] - https://support.apple.com/en-us/102321
1 reply →
Absolutely there's a problem on my end, but how do I fix it! How did it get to that state in the first place? How do I make it not come back?
I may be a spotlight unicorn, but I’ve never seen this behavior people complain about. Spotlight has always been instant for me, since its introduction and I’ve never seen a regression.
It is completely useless on network mounts, however, where I resort to find/grep/rg
I've never had this issue. M1 Max. But I also disable some of the Spotlight indexes. Cmmd+Space has no files for me, when I know I am searching for a file I use Finder search instead.
TIL there is a search bar triggered by CMD+Space. After 15 long years.
Too late. Apple has destroyed it.
I just got my first ARM Mac to replace my work Win machine (what has MS done to Windows!?!? :'()
Used to be I could type "display" and Id get right to display settings in settings. Now it shows thousands of useless links to who knows what. Instead I have to type "settings" and then, within settings, type "display"
Still better than the Windows shit show.
Honestly, a well setup Linux machine has better user experience than anything on the market today.
> a well setup Linux machine has better user experience than anything on the market today
We probably have to preface that with “for older people”. IMO Linux has changed less UX wise than either Windows or MacOS in recent years
8 replies →
>windows shit show
And yet on Windows 11, hit Win key, type display, it immediately shows display settings as the first result.
3 replies →
Despite what the sibling comment says, my anecdata is that cmd+space works perfectly fine.
People are really unable to differentiate “I am having issues” and “things are universally or even widely broken”
Or, and bear with me hear, there is a problem even if you aren't experiencing it.
I've been using spotlight since it was introduced for... everything. In Tahoe it has been absolutely terrible. Unusable. Always indexing. Never showing me applications which is the main thing I use it for (yes, it is configured to show applications!). They broke something.
for the record, my newish mac shows the display settings fine when i type display
It feels like the 2000s era of “Mac software is better but you have to tolerate their hardware to enjoy it” has inverted in the last 5 years. Incredible hardware down to in-house silicon, but software that would have given Steve Jobs a stroke.
Firstly performance issues like wtf is going on with search. Then there seems to be a need to constantly futz with stable established apps UXes every annual OS update for the sake of change. Moving buttons, adding clicks to workflows, etc.
My most recent enraging find was the date picker in the reminders app. When editting a reminder, there is an up/down arrow interface to the side of the date, but if you click them they change the MONTH. Who decided that makes any sense. In what world is bumping a reminder by a month the most common change? It’s actually worse than useless, its actively net negative.