Comment by gambiting

25 days ago

>>Huh? How do you expect Apple to show live search results if they don't send what you're typing to their servers?

I don't want spotlight to show any online results in the first place, is there anyone here who does?

14 comments

gambiting

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jmb99  25 days ago

Settings -> Spotlight -> Turn off everything you don't want. The first few times you open it it even tells you this.

Admittedly I haven't confirmed that this results in no API calls in the latest few macOS releases but it definitely used to stop them, at least a few years ago.

  • overfeed  24 days ago

    Opt-out privacy isn't a policy an organization serious about Privacy - the sort Apple pretends to be - would adopt.

  • m463  25 days ago

    you realize this is very laborious. every time you install a new app - or sometimes when you update an app - you have to do it again.

    also, search for "improve" in settings. I'll bet you didn't find "Help Apple Improve Search" in the results. Ironic on many levels.

asimovDev  24 days ago

I use it sometimes to quickly do currency conversion, I am assuming it does an online request to a currency exchange API. If that counts, then count me as a person who does want to see online results. But I did disable the web search results in Spotlight settings, that's just annoying

  • ProllyInfamous  24 days ago

    Yes, your example "counts" (as somebody desiring the online features of Spotlight).

    But macOS makes it extremely difficult to search your local files (without using Spotlight) so you effectively cannot search your offline APFS without revealing your local queries (to Apple, at a minimum).

    This seems wrong.

    ----

    I've met several $100k+ tech geniuses who absolutely refuse to believe this behavior is normal/default – but a local PiHole (or simple internet searches) reveal this Truth (capital t, with respects to DFW).

    While providing over-the-shoulder IT support, I saw a hardware designer for a tech company enter proprietary company information into his "local" Spotlight search (to find a CAD file he had recently designed, demonstrating that the computer was "working"); when I told him about smoot.apple.com (e.g: Spotlight local queries offloading) his face turned white – fortunately that company only has a few thousand customers (very niche hardware designs for BMS/power delivery management), and no "real" competition... but he still refuses to fully believe the levels of telemetry in 2026.

    (I think the LG TV story last month "woke him up"; the Bitcoin Ledger embedded SoC SIM key-thefts via man in the middle attacks should bring out the last remaining tinfoil hats). Stay frosty.